Wild Swimming in Eerie England

We have been on our holiday and we managed to spend a few glorious days on Dartmoor, one of my favourite places, with a seemingly limitless array of stunning locations to walk to. This time we took a  walk North, following a branch of the Dart river, from Two Bridges to visit Wistman's Wood.

Wistman's Wood is fairy small, and yet, it is a truly spectacular place; stunted dwarf Oaks, huddle together and cling to the sides of the steep valley amidst a chaotic carnage of vast granite boulders. The curious feature that makes it seem like a set from a Harry Potter movie, is that the whole place is positively draped in dense layers of thick green spongy mosses and ferns.

You need to be careful, as you clamber through the boulders, partly because it is slippery and dangerous terrain, partly because you want to preserve this unique environment and partly because there are various legends that indicate that the Devils ghostly Wist Hounds abide in the area, as well as nests of writhing vipers. 

We found it a truly splendid place and it fulfilled my slightly obsessive quest for English Eerie. After eating our sandwiches in the Druidic grove, we trekked back over the nearby tors to the Two Bridges Hotel for tea and scones. Finally, on our route home, we stopped off at Merrivale to visit the fascinating array of stone rows and circle there.

On another day we took a lovely woodland walk from the village of Holne, again along the river Dart until we found the legendary Sharrah Pool.

This idyllic spot is perfect for a picnic followed by a bit of wild swimming. The Dart has carved out a massive groove through the ancient granite landscape, which is deep enough to dive into in several places (if you are brave enough) and longer than 100 meters. 

There are several delightful places along the river, where it is deep and accessible enough to swim, and these natural Jacuzzis are becoming more popular with the recent trend for wild swimming in the UK but Sharrah Pool is astounding and an absolute must.

The dark peaty water gushes down-hill via boulder strewn white-water rapids and sluices into the main pool via a narrow waterfall and channel, "the Sharrah Shoot". The bold can plunge into the shoot and get swept into the pool for further swimming and frolicking. After exhausting ourselves in the pool, we hiked back to Holne for the best cream teas in Devon from the local community shop, the perfect conclusion to a brilliant day out.

Mysteries of Dartmoor

No food in this post, unless you count our sandwiches, the Apples Hazelnuts and Walnuts will be ripe soon, but for now, two lovely walks... This Summer we were in Devon - and when in Devon - I always insist on visiting Dartmoor. I love to walk in the wildness of this place and I especially enjoy hunting for prehistoric Stone Circles. This year we managed to make two separate trips. Fortunately, the rings on Dartmoor have not been sanitised and fenced off, like Stonehenge. There is no visitor centre, you cannot arrive by coach, and you must scramble over rough terrain, in order to reach them.

First we marched over Whittenknowle Rocks and through the derelict Ditsworthy Warren House, before stopping to eat a picnic on a large rock. Then my intrepid son and I continued ahead, navigating our way through a bog and herd of huge cows in order to reach the ancient ritual area of Drizzlecombe.

At Drizzlecombe we explored the massive standing stones and mysterious stone rows that teem down the hillside from the remnants of a primitive settlement. The standing stones are impressive monuments and must have been very important. No one knows exactly why the rows were erected or what significance they held for the builders. Some, but by no means all, seem to be associated with burial mounds.

On our second outing, the objective was Scorhill Stone Circle, which turned out to be a popular destination. We met several other people hiking around carrying maps, and it wasn't too long before we located this fantastic ring.

Scorhill (pronounced Scorill) is a very evocative place; you could easily miss it as you dodge the ponies, cows and sheep down the rugged hillside path. However, once you arrive and spy the wonderfully jagged rocks sticking up like the fangs of some primordial monster, you know that you are in a very special place.

The sweeping panorama from this singular site is nothing short of majestic. From where we sat enjoying our sandwiches and coffee we could also see a smaller ring on a nearby hillside. The shades and tints of the landscape were stunning; the blue-grey sky against the dun horizon, purple heather mingled with the green and yellow of gorse and wild flowers.

The great granite-grey stones that form the ring stand like sentinels but what they guard, no one can know. It was very atmospheric, and I felt lucky to be there on such a stunning day. I sent the children scurrying off in opposite directions to count the stones and they predictably came back with different answers.

We spied several ancient stone clapper bridges down in the valley below us and we wandered down to explore these after eating our lunch.