Dartmoor: England's romantic wilderness

It’s the drama of nature that draws me to the moors. Good weather offers stunning views over miles of broad, heather-covered hills all the way to the sea. The moors are peppered with piles of house-sized boulders called "tors". These are great fun to climb (and many are easy climbs, only mild fitness required!). You’re never alone out here. The moors are thick with grazing sheep and cows, along with herds of the famous Dartmoor ponies.

There’s plenty of evidence of ancient peoples out here. You can walk out to remote, and therefore pristine, stone circles of the same type as Stonehenge (though smaller). There are the ruins of a medieval village to explore beneath Hound Tor, and you can see the path of Celtic crosses set up to guide monks from one monastery over the moor to their sister house on the other side.

Pockets of woodland and gentler landscape within the moor provide the setting for picturesque villages and easier strolls down moss-banked rivers right out of a fairy tale.

Half an hour takes you off the moor and into range of Devon and North Cornwall’s top tourist attractions: beaches, country houses, historic towns and dramatic castles.

Quick Tips:

BE PREPARED: Bring a compass, a good map, the proper supplies and clothing that anticipates multiple types of weather. If you’re not a frequent wilderness hiker, go on an escorted walk or stay within sight of a road.

GET OFF THE MOOR: It’s wonderful, but don’t miss the cultural sites around it. You’ll regret it!

DON’T FEED THE PONIES: They’re tame, they’re cute, and they’ll eat out of your hand. But the free food draws them to the roads, where many get killed by speeding cars each year. It’s better for them if you admire from a distance.

DON’T BE SCARED OFF BY BAD WEATHER: Sun is best, but the drama of thick fogs or tempestuous storms adds a "Hound of the Baskervilles" feel you’ll love. As long as you can retreat to a warm B&B or roaring pub fire!

Best Way To Get Around:

If you like to walk, Dartmoor is one of the few places deep in the English countryside you can actually get to, and enjoy, without a car. Trains from London serve a variety of the towns around the moor’s edge, and regular bus services cross the park. Check out the official web site at http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/ for details. Many people come here exclusively for walking holidays, picking one centrally-located hotel (The Cherrybrook, which I recommend, is a classic.) and taking walks from there each day.

However, I do prefer my car. It gives you the ability to move around the moor quickly so you can start walks from different locations. You can also stretch to the historic and cultural sites that ring the moor, and you have more flexibility if the weather turns grim.

You can drive to the centre of Dartmoor from West London/Heathrow in about 5 hours if you don’t hit unusual traffic. I often go down after an early stop from work on a Friday and get up very early on a Monday to drive back. It’s a long haul, but worth it if you need a bit of deep country R&R.

I discovered Dartmoor on a cold, clear Friday afternoon in February. I was in Plymouth on business and couldn’t face the hours of traffic back to London. I’d heard of the beauty of Dartmoor, thought I would check it out and find a B&B for the night. This idea seemed a lot less brilliant once I was in the middle of the moor, miles away from any sign of human habitation and unsure of where I was going … with light fading fast. The sign for Cherrybrook loomed out of the deepening gloom. I turned in, had the good fortune to find a room and thereby discovered one of my favourite spots in England.

Cherrybrook is a small, intimate hotel that’s blessed by both its location and its owners. It’s in almost the exact centre of the moor, and benefits from both great views and many hiking trails starting from its own property. The remarkably genial Margaret and Andy Duncan make staying here more like visiting relatives (the kind you like) and they create breakfasts and dinners that have established the Cherrybrook as a restaurant in its own right (see separate entry).

There are just seven rooms; four above the main stair that goes up from the entry lobby and three in a side wing reached by separate stairs beside the dining room. (A word of warning; these rooms sit over the lounge and pick up noise from below. If you aren’t planning to eat in and want to go to bed early, ask for a room in the main building.) All have private bathrooms, though one does require you to nip into the hall to enter it. There’s a good combination of doubles, twins and singles. They’re all cosily decorated and spotlessly clean. The crisply-ironed sheets and deep duvets (comforters) here are a match for any high-end business hotel. My favourite rooms are at the front of the house, with expansive views over moorland that gently slopes down from the house.

The Cherrybrook was a farm house, built and given as a gift to a doctor of George IV when he was Prince of Wales. (The Prince of Wales is also the Duke of Cornwall; much of Dartmoor and the long lease on the Cherrybrook still belongs to the Duchy, currently overseen by Prince Charles.) Thus the architecture gives a pleasant Regency/Jane Austen feeling.

There are two main public spaces, the dining room and the lounge just off it. The lounge is a bit rougher in feel; it was a barn area of the original house before being converted. It’s stone walls and hanging beams give it the feel of a pub.

Standard rates for a room, breakfast and dinner are £48 per person, £30 if you’re not eating in. Check out discounted rates for longer stays. Cherrybrook allows dogs, a massive benefit it you’re coming from England or Europe. Walking Dartmoor with your dog at your heels is a rare joy!

Confession: I’m a serious cook. I love to eat, to entertain, and to combine those loves into extravagant dinner parties. A fact which sets the scene for my appreciation of Margaret Duncan’s cooking at Cherrybrook. I simply do not know how she provides the broad menu and flawless service of a good restaurant on the scale and with the mood of a big dinner party.

Most diners are hotel guests, but the restaurant has gained such a fine reputation that it’s not unusual to meet people who’ve driven up here simply to celebrate a special occasion with a good meal.

Margaret regularly has between 10 and 14 people sitting down to dine. A tough number to offer much choice. Yet Margaret’s typical menu offers four or five choices for each course. And I’ve never had anything I didn’t like!

You begin your dinner in the lounge, where Andy will pour you a cocktail, enquire over your day and offer suggestions for tomorrow’s activities. You’ll mix with your other guests and often make some friends. You order while drinking; you’re then called to your table when it’s time to eat. (Though all guests eat in the same dining room, you have separate tables for each party.)

Typical first courses cover a broad range, from soups and salads to shrimp cocktails or baked goat’s cheese. The range of mains includes meat, fish, chicken and a vegetarian option, and comes with heaped platters of vegetables and potatoes. The only time you won’t get a choice is on Sundays, when Margaret does a traditional roast beef. She does it better than anyone I know, so you won’t miss anything.

Desserts are equally wide ranging, from simple things like ice cream or fruit to more complicated cakes, pies and specialities. And because you’re in Devon, this will be served with a bowl of clotted cream.

For those of you unfamiliar with this delicacy, it’s a rich condiment that falls somewhere between very sweet butter and incredibly thick whipped cream. It’s traditionally served with scones and jam at tea time, but in this part of the country you put a dollop of it on all dessert items. The people of Devon and their Cornish neighbours regularly fight over who makes the best clotted cream. This is somewhat like the Belgians and the Swiss slugging it out over the chocolate crown. They’re both so much better than everyone else that it really doesn’t matter. Just enjoy the battle. And don’t even THINK about the fat content!

Save room for the fourth course, a wonderful platter of local cheese that encompasses blues, cheddars, hard and soft. All are made within 50 or so miles. Be sure to try the Cornish Yarg, a hard, sharp, white cheese rare outside the Southwest.

Stuffed, you can stumble back to the bar where you’ll enjoy coffee and … if you can manage … chocolates. The overall experience is one of the best meals for the money you’ll find in England.

A legend says that the fires in the Warren Inn haven’t gone out in 150 years, since the publican of an older inn across the road rescued the hearth fire from the recently burned-down building, started a new fire and built the new inn around it. You may not appreciate the significance of fire until you get caught in a cold mist on the moor or stumble upon this place after a long, dark drive over isolated hills. In either case, the warmth and cheerfulness of a roaring blaze is a real prize.

I recommend this place as both a pub and a restaurant. (They let rooms as well, though I haven’t seen those.) It must certainly live or die on the tourist trade, yet it FEELS local. A typical night will see a huddle of men in hunting greens and wellington boots, retrievers at their feet, quaffing pints and sharing a joke with the publican. The main room features warm wooden benches and furniture, stone walls, a flagstone floor and those famous fireplaces at either end. This is the way an English pub should be … and believe me, there aren’t many left like this!

The Inn stands on its own and feels like it is, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere. Though it’s on the main road between Postbridge and Two Bridges, there isn’t another building in sight as you stand on the hilltop before the building. In fact, the only man-made thing you can see is a few stone sheep pens and one of the celtic crosses marketing the old path between monasteries. This is a magnificent view on clear days, when you can sit at tables across the road and watch the sheep amble across the moor. In bad weather it’s miserable … a high point that sees the cold wind slamming your clothing into your skin and turns rain into sharp little missiles. Which brings us back to the fire, pure heaven when you’re leaving those conditions outside the door.

The food is good here and, like the décor, follows traditional English lines. You’re likely to find things like steak and ale pie, fish and chips and gammon (a thick slice of ham) chalked up on the menu boards. The menu changes with what’s available. Fish is often a good bet. Remember, though it FEELS like you’re miles from anywhere, you’re actually sitting on top of a fairly thin peninsula between the English channel and the Atlantic Ocean. Fish is as local as the sheep wandering by the window.

Pints of ale, bitter and cider are pleasantly chilled, served with a smile and a great value when compared to big city prices. Do designate a driver, however. It’s easy to drink FAR too much in this pleasant atmosphere and you do not want to be finding your way across a dark moor with anything less than all your wits about you. That, of course, is the way many Dartmoor ghost stories begin…

Many of England’s great houses spring from the dissolution of the monasteries, when Henry VIII and his advisers made a fortune by seizing the Catholic Church’s property and selling it to ambitious noblemen. Oh, yes, he got a divorce along the way as well. Most of these "abbeys" have only tenuous architectural links to the original … they use the stones from the religious buildings, build out from the abbot’s house or build up from the cloisters (as at the lovely Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire).

Buckland is unique in that the house was built inside the abbey church itself, subdivided to make floors and wings out of the original cavernous space. That makes Buckland a delightfully odd house, with weird twists, unexpected rooms and the occasional arch or buttress jutting unexpectedly over your head.

Its other … and wider … claim to fame is as home to Sir Francis Drake. He sailed around the world, defended his country (or was a pirate, depending on your point of view), made a fortune and settled down here near his childhood home to enjoy it. He had a great eye for property.

Buckland sits in a gentle valley that slopes to the river Tavy. This gave it quick water access to the wider world, but protected it from the storms that howl off the channel and up the moors. The house is surrounded by pleasant grounds, picturesque buildings (including a great example of a medieval tithe barn) and beautiful gardens. The view probably hasn’t changed much.

Inside, in addition to the wacky architectural jury-rigging, you’ll see some lovely historic rooms with good furniture and portraits. (Much looks Elizabethan, but is from a Georgian remodelling.) Some of my favourite bits include: dog gates from the 1770s, built to keep pets out of the better rooms; a Georgian staircase that’s a masterpiece of carpentry; the Elizabethan-furnished "Drake Chamber", recently embellished with a detailed plaster ceiling done in 16th century style by a modern artisan; and the original plasterwork in the great hall which has a wonderfully symbolic scene of the knight who originally built the place putting aside his armour and napping peacefully in his new-found pastoral retirement.

Outside, Buckland has recently been enhanced by the addition of an Elizabethan-style herb and flower garden. This compliments several existing stretches of garden and some great walks through gentle woodland down to the Tavy.

Don’t miss the old stables, where local craftsmen have turned the old horse boxes into shops. My favourite is Richard Woodgate, a water colourist who captures evocative scenes of Dartmoor. Richard gives classes several times a year at the Abbey; my mother and I took one last year. Sitting around the gardens and LOOKING hard enough to paint something is a great way to study the place in detail. Don’t think one class is going to get you to paint like Richard, though. Far better to purchase one of his paintings instead, which are a reasonable and unique memory of the region.

You’re driving through a pristine nature reserve, drinking in sights of amazing natural beauty. The road turns. You expect another wonder of flora and fauna and you get … garden gnomes. Not one. Not twenty. HUNDREDS of garden gnomes, placed artistically in a woodland garden beside a well-travelled bend in the road. There are gnomes fishing in the decorative stream. Gnomes working the hillside. Gnomes dressed in English football jerseys while others dance on toadstools. This is Pixieland, and there’s nothing else on Dartmoor like it.

In fact, there’s not much like it in England … though the edges of Dartmoor do have a higher-than average proportion of kid-seducing attractions. This is the kind of place you expect from America, where kids pester their parents for 600 miles of highway to let them "see Rock City" and "visit Ruby Falls". (Yup, I was one of them.) Pixieland’s bizzare collection of garden kitsch is so tacky that it’s cute, and has become a fixture for Dartmoor visitors as enduring as the tors and valleys.

The garden is, of course, the showy draw that gets you to stop into the small shop beside it. Where you can buy … you guessed it … lots of garden gnomes and pixies. If you ever wanted to class up your garden with such statuary, this is the place. I never knew the little people came dressed so many ways and performed so many professions. I dare say Pixiland’s proprietor could come up with a gnome in a white doctor’s coat with a bottle of Prozac in hand, should you wish to bring a special gift to your therapist.

Beyond the humour and the garden gizmos, there’s some other stuff to buy here that even the pixie-averse can warm to. This is one of the best places on Dartmoor to buy sheepskins. Plain, died, sewn together into luxurious carpets. A big, soft skin will cost you less than £30 and makes a great throw rug, seat cover or … in our case … luxury dog bed. The store also carries a wide range of local fudge, post cards, hiking gear and other collectibles.

Don’t pass Pixieland by. You’ll chuckle at the memory for years afterwards. And if you’re very, very good, the owner may even let you borrow a pixie hat from the dress up box and let you get photographed in local costume with the natives.

Tavistock is a gracious market town on the Western edge of Dartmoor. Its architecture is quite a bit grander than you’d expect from a town of this size, thanks to a history of noble patronage.

Most of the town was the private property of the Russell family, Dukes of Bedford and Marquessses of Tavistock, for centuries and they’ve always taken the connection seriously. The current Marquess and his wife, recently featured in a fascinating BBC series, still travel to their home down here regularly and get involved in local life. It was the architectural passion of their ancestors (who also created Covent Garden) that ensured the remarkable continuity of this little town.

In the Middle Ages the abbey here was more important than the town. Though most of the buildings are gone, you can still have a great time wandering around the ruins. Notice how many old bits … walls, archways and the like … are incorporated into the more modern buildings. There’s an interesting market area, a good church and some picturesque river walks. Shopping streets throughout town hold the usual high street chains plus a smattering of unique local shops. Pet stores, gardening goods, collectibles and outdoor gear features heavily. There are a couple of good antique stores and one excellent cheese shop that specialises in local varieties.

Elsewhere in town there’s an impressive statue to Sir Francis Drake, the local boy made good whose country estate is now a major tourist attraction a few miles away.