Dartmoor CAM

This walk: 2010-8-18. Bellever Forest, car park, stinkhorn fungus, Bellever Farm, Bellever bridge, C-stone, East Dart River, clapper bridge, grooved clapper stones, Whiteslade Farm / Snaily House, string-of-sausages lichen, pixie's matchsticks, maidenhair spleenwort, rowan, gorse, sitka spruce, Pimms.

Walk details below - Information about the route etc.

Notice at the entrance to Bellever Forest - with the new Pay & Display addition!

The facilities, with the new Pay & Display meter hidden behind a tree!

Car park scene.

A young Stinkhorn fungus, Phallus impudicus.

From the car park area into a part of the wood .....

Back outside the wood, the Youth Hostel at Bellever, formerly a farm where the Prince of Wales developed a pedigree herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle.

Continuing down the road, towards the forest entrance again .....

Approach to Bellever bridge, the old clapper bridge is just out of sight to the right ..... note the next-to-last stone on the righthand side of the road, nearest the camera .....

This is a "C" stone, designating the 300-feet limit from the bridge that the county were responsible for maintaining to keep the bridge open and trade flowing.

Roadside stones with the old clapper bridge behind .....

Bellever bridge over the East Dart River .....


Left section of the clapper bridge .....	Right section of the bridge, the centre span is missing .....

Looking downriver from beside the clapper bridge .....

"..... and I'm telling you, Mr Turner ..... I've told you once, I'm not telling you again!

The edge of the spanning stones have three grooves cut into them .....

A groove in more detail.

Looking down the river .....

Looking up the river.

Reaching the edge of the enclosure of Whiteslade Farm, or Snaily House as it became known, due to the history of two lady occupants who were said to exist on a diet of snails - actually the large black slug found locally (any slug or snail was a "snail" to the locals in times past .....

Large black slug, Arion ater, of the Snailey House variety. Caution - the link leads to a long old tale! This is a round-backed variety rather than a keel-backed slug (the breathing pore was near the front of its mantle rather than at the back). This slug was photographed during the Harter Corner walk on 4th Aug.

Looking up the river again.

A bearded lichen of the Usnea genus ..... for a closer look .....

An Usnea lichen, there are some sausage like swellings so it may be the string-of-sausages lichen, Usnea articulata.

Another lichen, not identified.

Approaching Snaily House .....

The Snaily House story gets told once more ..... with several mentions of Widdicombe, strangely .....

Happy walkers among the - "What flower is that?" One of the willowherbs?

A moss with fruiting capsules.

Pixies matchsticks - Cladonia floerkeana, known locally as Dartmoor matchsticks, pixies' matchsticks or as devil's matches - this species is very like a matchstick. Alternatives would be C. diversa (fruiting stalk is branched), C. macilenta (red tip is very narrow compared to diameter of the stalk) and Dibaeis basomyces (fruiting bodies are short and fat). Several Cladonia species can be seen here.

Maidenhair spleenwort, Asplenium trichomanes.

Some of the time, it rained on this August day!

Part of the architecture .....

A view of the lintel above the hearth, now largely all overgrown.

Mountain ash, or Rowan tree, Sorbus aucuparia, showing its red berries .....

Rowan berries.

Hillside becoming covered in flowering gorse .....

Gorse bush .....

Gorse flowers, detail.

"Hello, you ..... "

A stand of near-mature Sitka spruce, Picea sitchensis .....

The bole of one of the trees .....

A sitka spruce cone - taken home and photographed..

Pimms, complete with a borage flower, at the picnic, what a woman!

"Game for a laugh"

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh - Lara Croft - save me!

Two young walkers .....

Three young walkers.

Walk details

MAP: Red = GPS satellite track of the walk.

This walk was approached via the turn-off at Postbridge signed for Bellever. At the end of this road, turn left and find the forest entrance (before reaching the bridge over the river). Parking is at the P symbol/yellow cross on the map.

Statistics
Distance - 4.52 km / 2.81 miles