Dartmoor CAM

This walk: 2010-7-23. Four Winds, Yellowmeade Farm, Red Cottages, TA stone, tramway setts, Longash Common, King's Tor, Foggin Tor Quarry, quarrymen's cottages, monuments to quarrying, Swell Tor Quarry, quarrying remains, Plymouth & Dartmoor Railway, inclined plane, discarded London Bridge corbels, railway cutting, Merrivale Quarry, logan stone, Longash Brook, ford, stepping stones, Longstone, Great Staple Tor, Merrivale stone rows, cists, hut circle, Great Mis Tor, apple crusher.

This walk followed Exploration 8: Foggin Tor and Swell Tor Quarries and the Merrivale Antiquities in Exploring Dartmoor, by Harry Starkey.

Other photographs from earlier walks can be seen here: 27 June 2007, 4 July 2007, 14 July 2010.

Walk details on 2nd page - Information about the route etc.

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This oddity at Four Winds car park is a fixed (and very narrow) gateway with three steps on the other side, presumably to keep livestock from entering. This site was a school many years ago.


Rear views of the two gateways into the site from the car park (left & centre), at the right is the entrance at the back of the site which borders onto the leat (no doubt the school's water supply) that runs down between the stone rows at Merrivale. The leat can be seen in this photograph.

This is the Christmas tree planted by the schoolmaster before the school was abandoned - it is now a large Norway spruce(?). Perhaps the two spruces at Red Cottages may also be discarded Christmas trees? See the three photos after the next below .....
PS - "Hello" to new friends from Australia, met in this "garden".

Notice at the entrance to the lane up to Yellowmeade Farm.

A Blackface sheep, a spruce tree and King's Tor - at Red Cottages .....

There are four gateways along this wall into the old Red Cottages that once housed quarrymen, demolished in 1953 (the rubble being used in building the nearby North Hessary Tor TV transmitter) ..... I was informed recently that someone who lived here as a child was the wife of the author, Dave Brewer, who produced the book, Dartmoor Boundary Markers. She probably went to the school at Four Winds.

Another view at Red Cottages across Longash Common to King's Tor .....

A remaining piece of cottage chimney.

The entrance to Yellowmeade Farm, presently for sale, farmhouse (unlisted) and outbuildings with 14.43 acres, �400,000.

One of the granite setts in the track beside Yellowmeade Farm. These supported the rails of Thomas Tyrwhitt's horse-drawn tramway (Royal Assent granted in 1821), complete with grooves and fastening holes to hold the rails. This was how granite was taken away from Foggintor Quarry.

Yellowmeade Farm seen from the track.

More remains of the old tramway.

A detour to an old TA stone at SX 5678 7392, showing the "T" .....

..... and showing the "A". The T faces towards Tavistock and the A towards Ashburton. These are not boundary markers but way markers for an old packhorse track that ran from Ashburton to Tavistock.

An impressive monument to the quarrying activities that went on here in years gone by.

More incised granite setts .....

Looking down on a sett complete with incised groove to locate the rail and holes for the fastening nails - the remains of iron nails are sometimes seen.

Notice at the entrance to Foggintor Quarry. The quarry started in about 1820, originally to build Dartmoor Prison, and closed around 1900.

Another impressive monument to the past, a view from the left side can be seen below.

Another remnant from the quarrying days, looking across to Yellowmeade Farm and Great Mis Tor.

Inside Foggintor Quarry ..... quarrying ceased here around 1900 but continued at nearby Swell Tor Quarry until the 1930's. Granite from this quarry was used for the construction of Nelson. s Column in Trafalgar Square, London. Also, parts of London Bridge were of Foggintor granite (more on Page 2).

Remains of more quarrymen's cottages and possibly the old schoolhouse, they are all here somewhere but there are no notices .....

Another view of the impressive monument mentioned above .....

Dartmoor mountain sheep, with King's Tor behind.

Four Winds car park, seen from Foggin Tor .....

Entrance into Foggintor Quarry, the main entrance is wet and difficult, there is a footpath on the left but a better way in (we believe) up on the right (out of sight in this photo). This is the old Royal Oak siding into the quarry, where the granite for Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square was taken from (source: Dartmoor Walks web site).

Another part of the extensive Foggintor Quarry, click here or on the photo to see a larger version. The map (on Page 2) shows one area of the Quarry is flooded and the other, this one, is not. Another web site with more details: Derelict Places - Foggintor Quarry

From Foggintor to King's Tor, with a spoil heap in the middle-distance.

Looking back at Foggintor Quarry from the path up to Swell Tor Quarry.

A view inside Swell Tor Quarry ..... stone was taken in the 18902 to rebuild London Bridge, with the quarry closing in the 1930s.

As previous photo .....

The very wet entrance to Swell Tor Quarry .....

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