Dartmoor Town Guides
| South West Dartmoor Town Guide
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| Axtown and Yelverton
Yelverton a late Victorian and Edwardian village on the south western edge of Dartmoor National Park. The name Yelverton is believed to be a corruption of the original name Ella’s Ford Town later contracted to Elfordtown. Yelverton is well known for "the rock" - a large visible mass of stone close to the Plymouth road on the fringe of nearby Roborough dam and Sheeps Tor. During the Second World War a large airfield was constructed as a fighter station, The layout of the runways are still very clear and although these are substantially grassed over the many earth and brick protective bunkers built to protect the fighters from attack on the ground, are all still in place. There have been settlements in this area since prehistoric times and many standing stones, stone circles, burial chambers and hut circles still survive around Yelverton. |
| Buckland Monachorum The history of Buckland Monachorum goes back over 1500 years, two the sixth century. Today a small quite village, in a picturesque valley, just 4 miles South East of Tavistock.. appearing in the Domesday Book in 1086 as having a salt works, and a fishery. Buckland had the latter part of its name from its monastery, and is sometimes called Buckland Drake from the Drake family, who have held the manor since the reign of Elizabeth. Buckland Abbey, founded in 1278, brought the name Monachorum, meaning ‘ of the monks’. |
| Crapstone
Clapstone is located on the western edge of Dartmoor and is approximately 1 mile west from the village of Yelverton. "Crap" in Devonshire dialect means "crop" a crop of stones or Crapstone. The meaning of the name comes from the fields where the first building took place at "Crapstone Barton". The land was part of the Buckland Abbey estate, and had been granted to Richard Crymes in 1546, who built Crapstone Barton as his manor house. The Crymes sold on a lot of the land but in the early part of the 20th century it was bought back by Lady Seaton. So four centuries later, Crapstone estate returned to Buckland Abbey estates. The first houses were Crapstone Terrace built in the 1880s. During the Second World War Crapstone was the nearest village to RAF Harrowbeer. Members of the RAF crew were housed in the nearby villages of Crapstone, Yelverton and Buckland Monachorum. The Ministry of Defence maintained a defence site in Crapstone until the 1980s when the site was cleared and converted for residential use. In 2007 Crapstone was used as the name of the village in a television advert for the RAC.The industrial hub of the town is found in the Crapstone business park.
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| Clearbrook
It lies on the South Western fringe of Dartmoor. Clearbrook is possibly a reference to the intermittent stream that forms the Northern boundary of the field; 'clear' perhaps because it is not contaminated with China clay as are other Dartmoor streams not too far away. In the Historically it formed part of the hamlet of Buckland Monachorum, mid-nineteenth century Clearbrook was a farming and mining community. Close by is Plymouth Leat, also know as 'Drakes Leat', was built in 1591 to take drinking water over 18 miles from the Moor to Plymouth. Sir Francis Drake the Mayor of Plymouth is reputed to have ridden a horse along the leat ahead of the released water! The leat suoolied Plymouth for more that 300 years until it was replaced by Burrator reservoir.
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| Dousland Dousland is a small old mining settlement on the western edge of Dartmoor, just a mile north east of Burrator Dam on the western fringes of Dartmoor National Park. In the 19th century expansion of Plymouth prompted a search for a reservoir site in the Meavy and Dousland catchment to replace the supply from Drake’s Leat which suffered from evaporation in summer and became frozen in winter. Work began on the dam on the West edge of Sheeps Tor in 1893 and took five years to complete, opened in 1898. Due to the dams expansion in the early 1900's 'Lower Burrator Quarry' was opened just a few hundred meters from Dousland.
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| Horrabridge
Horrabridge is an ancient riverside village located on the western fringes of Dartmoor National Park. The name Horrabridge means "bridge on the boundary" and it has been aptly named as the village spans the four parishes of Buckland Monachorum, Whitchurch, Sampford Spiney and Walkhampton. Horrabridge at one time, had a variety of mines and a high population of miners. The former toll booth at Horrabridge 'Bars Gate' sited on the A386 Tavistock Road, The principal structure is thought to have been built for the Plymouth and Tavistock Turnpike Trust in the 19th century. |
| Meavy
MEAVY lies on the South West. edge of Dartmoor National Park, just a couple of miles from Burrator Reservoir, and its uplands are scattered with hut-circles and other Bronze Age remains, especially on Wigford Down. The North pier of the chancel arch, carved with rams' heads, is a relic of an early Norman building, and the greater part of the North wall is almost certainly Norman, but the remainder of the church is mostly early 16th century. South East of the village, is a fine example of a moorland wayside cross, it is referred to in a record of 1291. Meavy is famous for a Tudor house belonging to the family of Sir Francis Drake and the 15th-century Royal Oak outside of which stands a shattered oak tree thought to be one of Devon's last 'dancing trees' around which pagan rites were celebrated. |
| Shaugh Prior
Sitting on the South Western boarders of Dartmoor National Park, north West of the Lee Mill Clay Pits, commanding panoramic views of Plymouth Sound and across to Cornwall. SHAUGH PRIOR consists largely of moorland, rising to over 1,500 ft. in places and thickly dotted with remains of the Bronze Age. The upper Plym valley has a greater density of hutcircles than any other part of the Moor. Trowlesworthy Warren, about 2 m. NE. of Shaugh church, has the most important group of prehistoric monuments: numerous enclosures, hutcircles, a stone circle, and a stone row.
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 | Walkhampton A small village, in the valley of the little river Walkham, on the south western borders of Dartmoor National Park, contains a diverse and scattered selection of archaeological sites of all periods. Of particular interest are the relationships of the prehistoric settlement sites with each other, with major land boundaries and with ritual features. The very extensive areas of tin working make this one of the best areas for studying Dartmoor’s industrial history. Other settlement sites, later in date, have medieval origins. |
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