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This walk: 2012-11-14. Brimpts Plantation car park, logs, sawing depot ruins, Bellever Forest, Soussons Wood, Warren House Inn, Babeny, Sharp Tor, Bellever Tor, Loghtor Man, Laughter Tor, Pixie snot, Brimpts North Mine, Adit Shaft, Engine Shaft, stamping mill, wheel pit, dressing floors, dung bonnet, dry leat, slotted gate post, Huccaby Tor, Dartmoor pony.

Walk details below - Information about the route etc.

Link to Google Satellite view of the area. - the car park was just left of the B3357 label, with Huccaby Ring in the centre of the map and the mine waterwheel pit a short distance north-east of the fields to the west of Huccaby Ring.

 

Sign at the Brimpts Plantation car park. Brimpts Farm dates back to 1307 and was one of Dartmoor's ancient tenements. The original farm longhouse was further down the slope and closer to the River Dart. Click the photograph to see a larger version.

 

A few logs, or tree trunks.

 

Part of the ruins of a sawing depot ..... Charles Barrington (Duchy Steward, lived here mid-late 1800's), extended the local planting and was reputedly responsible for 10,000 trees. By WW1, these were ready for harvesting. An aerial ropeway was constructed to Princetown to get the wood to a railway .....

 

Another view from inside the old depot .....

 

As previous photograph, looking out .....

 

As previous photograph, trying to capture the trees reflected in the water.

 

Part of Bellever Forest (left) and Sousson's Down (right) with Riddon Ridge in the centre.

 

A view to Hamel Down (the high ridge) with the corner of Little Newtake Plantation (Brimpts).

 

Zoomed view to the Warren House Inn.

 

A view of the farm fields at Babeny (another ancient tenement).

 

Zoomed view to Sharp Tor, Sharp Tor, SX 686 729, elevation 380 metres (1246 feet), showing the road going uphill from Dartmeet to Ponsworthy and towards Widecombe-in-the-Moor.

 

Bellever Tor (left), Loughtor Man standing stone, and Laughter Tor (right) .....

 

Bellever Tor, SX 644 764, elevation 443 metres (1453 feet) .....

 

Loughtor Man, SX 65221 75390 ......

 

Laughter Tor, 653 757, elevation 420 metres (1377 feet).

 

What we know as Pixie Snot aka Pixie Dust found on the moor sometimes, possibly produced by a female frog whose egg-laying process has gone awry, in November?

 

An overview of four samples, at SX 65290 74798.

 

 Adit Shaft of Brimpts North ine ..... approximately SX 6535 7513 .....

 

A slightly closer view .....

 

Approaching the Engine Shaft of Brimpts North Mine .....

 

North Mine information board.  Click the photograph to see a larger version.

 

Dung Bonnet (Bolbitius vitellinus), a coprophilous fungus that breaks down dung. These are larger and more delicate than Dung Roundheads (Stropharia semiglobulata).

 

Looking west to the stamping mill and dressing floors of the North Mine .....

 

Dry Brimpts Mine leat, coming approx. 4 miles from the Cherry brook. A small clapper bridge here has subsided, looking east ......

 

The wheel pit that ran the stamping mill (with six stamps), to the left (beyond this was the dressing floor), to the right was the water-driven mechanism to run a flatrod system back to the shafts .....

 

Site of the dressing floors where the crushed i.e. "stamped" ore, now powdered to the consistency of sand, was sorted into heavy tin-rich material and lighter waste, by means of a water separation method (in buddles, see under Concentration). 

 

The track of the leat tailrace from the water wheel.

 

Dressing floor information board. Click the photograph to see a larger version.

 

A gate that utilises an old slotted gatepost.

 

Approaching Huccaby Tor, SX 6568 7400 .....

 

Huccaby Tor .....

 

There is a row of deposited Pixy Snot on the top of the rock .....

 

Another view .....

 

Zoomed close-up.

 

Huccaby Tor .....

 

Unidentified lichen .....

 

Huccaby Tor overview .....

 

Huccaby Tor, Dartmoor pony and Bellever Tor in the distance .....

 

The pony.

 

Scene on entering back into Snide Park Plantation at Brimpts .....

 

A view into the trees.

 

Walk details

MAP:  Red = GPS satellite track of the walk.



© Crown copyright and database rights 2012  Ordnance Survey Licence number 100047373
Also, Copyright © 2005, Memory-Map Europe, with permission.


 

This walk was reached by driving east from Two Bridges on the B3357 to a gateway on the left shortly after the right-hand turn down to Hexworthy, by the large green sign for the Forest Inn, parking at the yellow cross symbol on the map above.

 

Statistics
Distance - 6.05 km / 3.76 miles
 

 

 

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