Information
- Distance: 4 miles, walked by Keith Ryan and transcribed by Simon Avery
- Grade: Medium
- A GPX route of this walk is available: Download GPX
- Directions to Car Park
- What Three Words
mornings.cement.regret
Map
Widecombe Village
The name Widecombe is from “Withy or Willow Valley”, a Saxon name. Settlements and a wooden church were established here long before the Normans invaded in 1066 and in the Domesday Book (of 1086) includes the manors of Natsworthy and Dunstone in the Webburn valley. Granite longhouses began to appear in the 1100 & 1200s as the Village grew and got richer.
The large Granite Village Sign depicts the Uncle Tom Cobley song in a carved inset at the top. This sign was designed by Lady Sylvia Sayer in the 1940s who was chair of the Dartmoor Preservation Association from 1851 to 1973.
Lady Sayer was still a tremendous force on Dartmoor into the late 1980s. Respected, and perhaps a little feared, by the staff at Dartmoor National Park Authority when I worked there – Simon
Inscription reads:
BENEATH THIS STONE IS A TIME CAPSULE
PLACED BY WIDECOMBE PARISH COUNCIL
ON THE 9th DAY OF SEPTEMBER IN THE YEAR 2000 AD
NOT TO BE OPENED FOR 100 YEARS
Follow the road through around the church
Please take a moment to admire the stone walls and pavers. As a young YTS employee of DNPA in the Winter of 1988, I was the labourer who mixed the mortar for the mason who built these walls and repaved the standing… – Simon
The impressive base for this yew was originally constructed to hold a large granite cross, which is now located within the graveyard.
Church House dates from around 1537 and was initially built for parish festivities - an early form of village hall. These activities were stopped in 1603 by the Puritans who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices.
It then became a Poorhouse then in Victorian Times, a School. Currently it is owned by The National Trust and a shop and craft centre.
Widecombe Graveyard
Note the large flat-topped stone in the gate. This is for coffins to be rested on as they pass through the lych gate
This much repaired cross stands in an ancient socket stone, which is square at the bottom and chamfered above. Beatrice Chase campaigned for its repair. It’s original site was in the octagonal base outside the graveyard where now a yew tree grows. – Dartmoor Crosses
Beatrice Chase
A rare gravestone memorial in Widecombe churchyard, with two names for the same person.
Olive Katharine Parr was the author who used the pen name, Beatrice Chase.
Olive Parr, 1874 – 1955, moved to nearby Venton in the early 1900s and there wrote many books including “Through a Dartmoor Window”.
Somewhat of a self-publicist, Olive gave herself the rather grand title of “My Lady of the Moor”, claims to have invented the Uncle Tom Cobley story, and said she started the tradition of leaving fresh flowers on the grave of Kitty Jay. However, her descriptions of Dartmoor Life during the early twentieth century are without doubt very important from a historical perspective, and her passion for Dartmoor was no lie. She was also involved in the First World War effort, creating the “Knights of the White Crusade” - a movement to encourage all servicemen to be “Pure and noble”. She also campaigned against Dartmoor being turned into a National Park, and against its use as a Military training ground. Clearly a lady of strong opinions.
Widecombe Church
Dominating the village is the medieval Church of St. Pancras which dates from the late 1300, although there is a list of vicars which goes back to 1253 for the Village. It’s sometimes called The Cathedral Of The Moor due to it being so imposing, and also as it’s the biggest Church on Dartmoor. The 120ft tower was added in the 1400 or early 1500’s through the benevolence of the tinners’ Guild of St Pancras.
Named after a Roman boy, Pancratius, martyred under Emperor Diocletian in 304 AD.
The church was badly damaged in the Great Thunderstorm of 1638, apparently struck by ball lightning. An afternoon service was taking place at the time, and the building was packed with approximately 300 worshippers. Four of them were killed and 60 injured.
The Old Inn
A glebe is a piece of land in the parish used to raise revenues for the clergy.
Follow the road down the hillto the left of the smithy
The original Post Office was down the bottom of this hill (Southcombe Villa, P.O.) where the Postmaster lived and one of the adjacent buildings was the stable for his horse. The Cafe on the Green and a building between here and the Green were also Post Offices at one time. Source: a local resident
Village well and Piggery
The Old Piggery was restored as part of the Lottery funded Moor Than Meets the Eye Project and is worth a look. It holds old tools and implements and is a small, free museum.
For our walk, we turn and walk back uphill again. Past the Square and follow Church Road, which is left before the Village Green
Kingshead Farm Gatepost
As we pass this gateway on the left to Kingshead Farm, and a footpath which leads out over Hameldon towards Grimspound, it’s worth looking more closely at the left post.
Wooder Manor
One of those men killed in Widecombe Church during the Great Thunder Storm of 1638 lived in Wooder Manor, one Roger Hill.
He is remembered in the Church ; two ledgers set into the floor of the nave between the transepts, one of which bears the following epitaph:
Hic Iacent Corpora Rogeri Hill Generosi
et Annae Uxoris Eius
Vir Obiit 21 Octobris 1638
Uxor Autem 17 Januarij 1648
This beautifully carved stone is set in the west hedgebank on our left at ground level, 80 metres North of Stouts Cottages. It is exactly 1 mile from the Church.
“About a mile north of Widecombe village, just beyond Stouts Cottages there is an old stone, with the inscription ‘1 mioL’ on it. Suggested to be a parole stone defining the limits that prisoner of war officers (Napopleonic, 1809-1815) were allowed to range within.” – Heritage Gateway - MDV30083
Thornhill Lane
We stay on the quiet metalled road for about a mile and a half, until we see the stony track leading up to the right
Thornhill or Thorny Lanewas a medieval road going North from Hemsworthy Gate to Natsworthy that avoided going down the steep Widecombe Hill. This is still legally classified as a full motorable road (A Byway Open to All Traffic - or BOAT), and is legally used by cars and motorbikes today although, as you can see, it’s more suited to off road vehicles.
Hameldon, (Trig Point at SX 70313 80573, elevation 529 metres / 1735 feet) across the East Webburn River.
The East Webburn rises near Grimspound and flows through Widecombe to join the West Webburn River south of Widecombe at Lizwell Meet (Oakmoor Wood), at SX 71335 73703.
Bonehill
Bonehill Gate, beside Bonehill Rocks where the road descends steeply to the medieval hamlet of Bonehill (or Bunhill), constructed between 1066 and 1682.
Middle Bonehill was owned by the Smerdon family throughout almost the entire post-medieval period. In fact, it was owned from mid-Elizabethan times until the closing years of the Victorian era by no less than eleven consecutive generations of John Smerdons. The last John Smerdon died and the property passed to Edwin Smerdon who died in 1900, when the family connection was finished. – Mike Brown
An impressive group of buildings stand huddled together in the small hamlet of Bonehill, the centrepiece of which is the imposing sixteenth century longhouse of Middle Bonehill with its fine porch bearing the inscription IS 1682 on the lintel. An early nineteenth century barn stands alongside, whilst a seventeenth century barn stands on the opposite side of the road. Lower Bonehill is another sixteenth century longhouse, in the middle of a group of five seventeenth and eighteenth century outbuildings. Higher Bonehill is a sixteenth or seventeenth century farmhouse, not of the longhouse design. – Mike Brown
A former longhouse with massive blocks of granite forming its quoins and wall bases. – Heritage Gateway - MDV7467 Lower Bonehill Farmhouse
Follow the road on down the hill and along to arrive back at Widecombe to complete our walk
Parking
Posted coords are for Widecombe’s main car park, which is Pay and Display. There are additional parking places on the Eastern approach to Widecombe by Northway Bridge, and also at Bonehill Rocks.
References
- Church of St. Pancras
- Eric Hemery (1983), High Dartmoor, Robert Hale, London, pages 667-677.
- Beatrice Chase - Legendary Dartmoor
- Beatrice Chase - Wikipedia
- Heritage Gateway - MDV29743 Bonehill Medieval Settlement
- Mike Brown (2001) Guide to Dartmoor, CD-ROM, Dartmoor Press,