Dartmoor 7 : Nun’s Cross Farm.

Previously on Dartmoor : Foggintor Quarry area

Re-supplied and fortified My journey to Nun’s Cross Farm could wait just a little while longer.  The fine visitor centre in Princetown was well worth another visit.  The dog was welcomed in and had not abused such a warm welcome so why not a second visit.

In a former life the visitor centre was the hotel Conan Doyle stayed in.  Later he writes Hound of the Baskervilles, an ever present thread to my Dartmoor wanderings, often the very real soundtrack as my mp3 player has the audio book in endless repetition.

Conan Doyle, after a series of deaths of those loved and close retreated into the fad of spiritualism which had been given a boost by the slaughter in muddy foreign fields, 1914-18.  The same slaughter that is remembered by Dartmoor granite memorials around the country.

Stepping into the centre, the immortal Sherlock Holmes leans precariously on the stairs.  A shop dummy, dusty eyeballs, only determined imagination can turn him into a mercurial genius.  Nothing quite as bad as the Monks on display at Buckfast Abbey, but that is a whole different tale.

Conan Doyle did not stop with spiritualism, he believed in fairies, as evidenced by the photographs taken by two small girls at the end of their garden.  It would not have taken Holmes long to see through the cardboard fairies.  The world was still asking the sisters if the Cottingley Fairy photographs were fake 60 years later.  Eventually the sisters confessed, they were fake.  The photographs were fake, but there were fairies at the bottom of the garden, they had seen them.

The fuss is over five photographs.  Four were hoaxes, the fifth, one of the sisters maintained was genuine.  Your laughing, but deep down, you want that fifth image to be real too.  I will ask the Piskies, if anyone knows they do.

Princetown has claim to a few “highest” records, even if they are somewhat parochial in nature.  Highest town on the moor, highest railway in Britain.  A record somewhat tarnished by the closure of the railway in 1956.  Can you hold a record for something that no longer exists?

The path to Nuns Farm Cross is well defined, it starts between the two pubs near the roundabout, 40 yards, your on the Moor.  The path is a white scar on a green carpet today but I suspect the colours are weather dependant.  It is uphill, almost instantly you are looking down on the town with all the pretensions to height.  The higher you go the more dominant a feature the great granite bulk of the prison becomes.

This prison being the place from which the madman Seldon has escaped in The Hound of the Baskervilles.

South Hessary Tor is before me and has activity beside it, a large group of people milling about.  Britain’s finest are training, all guns and gear.  The OC is telling them something, it might be navigational in nature.  This green and pleasant land is not what they are training for, the armed service have a purpose beyond Northern Ireland or worrying about holding back the Russian bear for a few minutes before it rolls over them.

The path sets me on a collision course with the group, it is something I cannot easily avoid.  The guns loom large in my mind, the authority they naturally represent.  It is a natural enough reaction, who wants to walk through the middle of an armed gang?  But it is not my real concern.  Dog 2 is already going ahead, he is very keen to collect as many pats and tickles under the chin as he possibly can.

The setup is perfect, the soldiers are strung out along the path, some sitting, some crouched, others standing.  The first soldier tickles Dog 2, it seals the fate for the rest of them.  Down the line dog 2 goes, not moving until he has collected the pat he feels is his due.  The ice is broken before I reach the group, now I have to walk the line, nodding, grinning, greeting, feeling I should say more to thank these people, tell them they must be bonkers, glad someone is still prepared to pay the price, feeling awkward and English about it.  No words do justice to my feelings, so I say nothing.

The path stretches onwards, the views all around me are wonderful, the sun is hammering the moor, I am very keen to get my first glimpse of Nun’s Cross Farm.

A series of stone boundary markers lead the way, paths criss-cross, to my right Burrator reservoir can be seen.  A great flat disk of fallen sky.  Devonport Leat is visible heading towards it in the foreground.

The Leat is on my list of things to be seen this trip, its a man-made water course afterall.  In a previous visit I walked around Burrator Reservoir, that was a wonderful day, it could not be repeated if I wanted too, so I am not going to risk trying.

My trips to Dartmoor have been blessed, the odd snatched week here and there from March to October and all more than the expected quota of sun.  One year I was soaking up the sun a week before the ten tors was abandoned because of hideous weather.  I cannot decide if it is more extreme weather patterns or more extreme reaction from health and safety.

My footfalls stir up grey dust, either side of the path are dark peaty pools, lucky me, my complaint of it being “too warm” is a great complaint to have in England.  Dog 2 investigates the peaty pools religiously, he is thirsty, the dog bowl is fished out of a pocket.  If he sticks his head in the bowl, he wants a drink, if he doesn’t it goes back in the pocket, he sticks his head in the bowl.  It is an old collapsible drinking bowl bought many years ago, a survivor of many walks, it has lasted longer than the shop it was bought from.

In the dip of two hills, bookended by single trees, the grey straight lines of a dwelling.  Nun’s Cross Farm, it can be seen from quite a distance, the cross nearby can also be seen, a cow stands guard.

The Cross, Siward Cross, is older than the farm, it is possibly the oldest cross standing on Dartmoor.  It first gets a mention in 1240, making it the earliest recorded, it is older than that.  It is also the largest cross standing on the moor.

In 1846 the shaft was broken when the cross was upturned for no more reason than it could be.  Two years later it was thankfully repaired.  The alternative name is Nun’s Cross and is now more commonly used.  Nun being a much used word within this area, Nun's Cross Brook, Nun's Cross Common, Nun's Cross Farm, Nun's Cross Ford, Nun's Cross Ford Mill, Nun's Cross Hill, Nun's Cross Mine, Nun's Cross Mire, and Nun's Cross Warren (Legendary Dartmoor ).

Beckamoor, or Windy Post is my favourite of the Dartmoor crosses, but this grandfather of them all is a good second.  It is a solid citizen, human scale and guardian of much around it.

The farm was not so long lived, the land having been enclosed around 1870.  One main structure still stands and is now used by Kelly College as a centre for outdoor activity on the warmer evenings.

When I was there, it was just being opened up for the first time that year, it is very basic and not a place to venture into if you don’t like mice.

Within the farm walls can be made out the humps and bumps of foundations for various farm buildings, now fallen, all but obliterated.

There is an image taken in 1962 which shows the buildings just about still standing. Link to image.  A lot has changed in 50 years, and it is a reminder to always take a picture today, tomorrow it is different.

On past the farm the path marches relentlessly and I am carried along with its flow, the desire to see over the next hill and what lies ahead for other days exploration.

Quite swiftly the farm is out of sight, although I rarely look back at views, preferring what lies ahead.  When I do look back from time to time, I wonder why I don’t do this more often, but it never becomes habit forming.

Coming towards me is a gang of people, they are not army, they are not seasoned hikers.  They have the appearance we all had once, wear what you got and borrow what you haven’t.  Young people with ideas of being adult.  They trudge past with varying degrees of enthusiasm.  I know where they are going, but I hope to be wrong.

“Where are you going?” I ask every fourth or fifth person.  It is not me being obtuse or forgetful, it is because so far none of them know.  I do, but not going to give them any clues.

Sure enough my quiet wildcamp spot is overwhelmed with noise and bad language.  I am 24 hours too late to enjoy quiet reflection at Nun’s Cross Farm.  Kelly College is opening the farm up as well, another large group of younger children appear.  They are none too impressed with the language their young charges are going to be subjected too.  I am simply too darn tired to move, I pitch camp with the squealing going on around me, feet running past.  I am able to sleep in circumstances others might find difficult, a practised art which serves me well.  Even the dog doesn’t care, into the bivvy, asleep.

I had been warned this was a popular wildcamp spot.

My feet are treated to a wet wipe each, the sheer decadence of it is delicious.  It felt very nice to be pampering the “plates of meat” while a beef concoction involving rice and a pot noodle for good measure was being prepared in the trangia.

I am a curiosity for the children around me.  One group asking if I killed rabbits to live out on the moor.  There seemed to be a general belief I had not seen civilisation for a long period of time.  Less than 10 hours out from sausage and chips in Princetown it is difficult to know exactly how to react to this sort of news.

One group are troubled youths, their caretakers hoping a trip out into the countryside will somehow remodel them when they return to whatever urban existence awaits them.  Is there any evidence this works, or is it just an exercise in flushing cities of their human waste for a while.  Poor sods haven’t got a chance, it is touch and go with a good start.  Start bad and it is a hell of a slog.

In my bivvybag my MP3 player transports me back in time, Sherlock Holmes is hot on the trail of the giant hound.  There is strong suggestion Nun’s Cross Farm is the original inspiration of Merripit House.  The Fox Tor Mire which can be seen nearby the potential model for The Great Grimpen Mire.  I crank up the volume, if I cannot lose myself in the solitude of the place, I can drown out the present with the past.

And the Cottingley Fairies?

Well the Piskies told me the fifth photograph was studied in 1972 by the curator of the Kodak Museum.  The conclusion, it was a double exposure of cardboard cut-outs.  Both sister’s had taken a picture.  This is probably why one believes it is genuine, unaware it was a double exposure and eventually too old to change her mind.  Clever little people the piskies.

Air Show.

More of a destination than a journey.  I was transported to the show via the magic of the internal combustion engine (external combustion engines exist).  I arrived early, this is not somewhere you arrive on time, not unless you want to walk 2 miles from car to show.  I didn’t, not because the walk was a dread, but the traffic jam that would accompany the end of the show is going to be horrendous.

Clacton is built on the coast, this means a coast road, which effectively means, one way in, one way out, today cars are parked on both sides of that road for 3 miles and more, bumper to bumper, I do not dare investigate the small side roads.

Having arrived with plenty of time I did a little sight-seeing and picked a spot I thought would be a good vantage point.  Near the Pier, but careful to be on the correct side, the bit where the planes would be doing the stuff.  Carefully chosen, my bit of the railings included a thorny bush to my left.  I had no intention of being hemmed in by humanity, that bush was going to stop that happening.  Not inconsequentially the memorial gardens are behind me, a large impressive war memorial, the names of the dead from 1914-18 and 1939-45 on it, with a large sculpted winged figure above them all.  It was the right place to be.

I have no interest in planes really.  I did want to see the Battle of Britain memorial flight and I was looking forward to seeing the Utterly Butterly girls “wing walking”.  Being as the airshow was technically over water, it means the planes can come in very close, the presumption being if something goes wrong there is plenty of water to ditch into and in terms of impact absorption water is better than terra-firma.  Whatever the reason, you can wave to the pilots in the cockpits.

My main motivation for going to air shows is memory.  Many many years ago a friend had an SLR camera which really impressed me.  It was so complex it just had to be good.  He liked airshows and had numerous images of tiny specks on a blue backdrop.  I am re-living the boredom of it now.  Well I wanted that camera and I wanted to be able to take pictures of planes.  The other reason, you should never forget.

The camera thing has gone full circle and I use a point and click device with as few bells and whistles as I can get away with.  I am still trying to taking the plane image that is in my head.  For those that care this mental image has a remarkable similarity to the moment in “Empire of the Sun” when the fighter pilot flies low over the land, canopy open and waves in slow motion as he goes by, all sun glint highlights.

The show begins, I have picked a good spot.  I know this because all around me are people with cameras that could be mistaken for telescopes.  Tripods, monopoles, lenses bigger than thermos flasks.  Oh dear, I am in a nerd forest, the wrong nerd forest, goretex is my element.  Still we are all here for the same reason, taking the image which is in our heads.

I take an endless series of blurry blobs in the sky while imagining all those around me are taking a shot of a Japanese fighter pilot waving in slow motion just above sea level.  Still it is darn good fun trying.  My technique improves a little, but my anticipation is way off, the planes are simply not in the right place at the right time and an error in location is glaring me in the face.  The sun gets in the way of of photographing aircraft heading towards me.  A damn silly mistake, the first one a fighter pilot is told to avoid and often the very last mistake he makes.  Getting home, reveals I still have a long way to go when it comes to aircraft photography.

I know very few things about aircraft but it stands me in good stead.  What a Spitfire looks like is my primary aircraft skill.  I am surrounded by experts, they know it all and in loud voices are keen to let everyone share in their knowledge.  I don’t mind, but am learning rather more about the people than the planes, conversations are about where they last saw the plane (last week somewhere in most cases).

A plane appears over the sea, unannounced, it has caught the BBC Essex outside broadcast team unawares.  Maybe they were looking under their desks for some more joke sound effects at the time.  Actually I am being naughty, the outside broadcast was mercifully free of gimmick and even had co-commentators more used to being in the aircraft than flying a microphone, it added rather than subtracted from the experience, even if some toe-curling cliché was to be expected .

The so far unidentified plane has squared off wing tips.

“Ahhh, there she is” a voice thick with emotion booms from somewhere behind me.  “Spitfire, I would recognise it anywhere, its the shape of the wings.”  I am ahead of the game, its not a Spitfire, its a Mustang.  I know it is not a Spitfire by prior knowledge.  Recognising it is a Mustang has been pieced together by a sneak preview of the show guide earlier in the day.

The DJ sparks into life, “blah blah, cliché, cliché, Mustang, blah, blah.”

Stunned silence around me.  “The announcer says it is a Mustang” a trembling voice sneaks into the silence.

For the next few minutes we are treated to why the identification error was made.  It had everything to do with engine note, the Mustang did not have its original engine.  This redressed the balance a little, nobody pointed out the totally different wing shapes it would be too difficult to explain away.  Much better something as unlikely as a Mustang having a Spitfire engine as a replacement had been the root of the error.

The Utterly Butterly girls were not, they were now a brand of skin care cream girls, but other than that the same.  Still great, rather them than me.  The planes swoop and climb, my stomach flips.  The airstrip they take off and land from is not far away, for a mad moment I consider heading there, but it would be like peeping behind the theatre curtain, the magic is front of house.  They look glamorous and daring, free spirits of the 1930’s, I don’t really want to see them unbuckled, windswept and staggering like some over-exerted nightclubbers.

High on my list of things “I am unlikely to see” then hoved into view, The Swifts.  An aerobatic team complete with glider.  It is a 3 aircraft team.  The glider is towed behind one of them doing a series of very unlikely looking rolls.  This must take some serious skill my initial understated thought.  Then the glider and its tug fly up into the blue gaining height while the third aircraft entertains the crowd.  The next time we see the glider it is free from the rope and doing all manner of rolls and turns and lord knows what.  Timing is everything, getting back to the airfield a serious consideration when you have not got an engine.

The Catalina flying boat was a treat to see, huge graceful, mercifully slow moving, it did a series of arcs over Clacton pier,it was impressive.  I had built a model of one as a small boy, the dual nature of its landing capabilities enthralled me.  I had never seen one in the flesh, an unexpected highlight.

Top billing of the show is always going to be the Battle of Britain Memorial flight.  Hurricane, the last one ever built, “The Last of the Many” was the one flying this day.  The Spitfire that flew was restored to flying condition in 1997 after 50 odd years of being grounded.  Both planes had rolls in the Battle of Britain film.

The star is always the Lancaster for me, only two airworthy examples left, this the only one in England.  I dread the day it crashes as these things have a tendency to do.

Here is the memorial flight website.

The Red Arrows were to end the show, but not for me, I had seen the fitting end to the show already, so I headed back to the car.  Before going though I stopped in at a small public garden where there is a plaque too an Airman that died during the Second World War.

Going home I drove faster than usual, in the brief bits of tarmac that still allowed me travel over 30mph I actually do, I had witnessed too much speed.  It is quite a time since I bothered going faster than 30mph on the 70 or so yard stretches between pointlessly assigned 30mph zones with cameras hidden waiting to apply the points and hand out the fine.  I am daydreaming over the life and demise of T.E Lawrence when a motorcyclist thunders past me, quickly followed by his friend allowing judgement and luck to be the arbitrator of whether he lives or dies stuck to the front of the on-coming vehicle.

Summer’s short season

Too long have I been in the enthral of the season spinners.  Those that will tell you of long hot summers.  They exist only in imagination, the good old days is the place for long hot summers, or perhaps long range forecasts from the Met.  August is over and with it summer to my mind.  There will be those, and I am among them, who will be happy to extol the increasing virtues of a sunny September, but it is an unexpected encore at best.  Summer is gone, it goes with August.

We have four seasons and we all know winter lasts at least six months in Britain, so we cannot expect much left on the timetable for the other 3.  Spring seems to have given up entirely as a season and has become more a state of mind.  Autumn seems only to be reflected in our diminishing stocks of ancient woodland.

I have the monthly stocktaking to do.  GPS files are sorted, images are backed up.  Once safely backed up the culling begins, secure in the knowledge if I really want the 100th photo of that fly, I can dig it out barring any significant problems.  Once the photo’s have been reduced to a more manageable number for the month they are geo-tagged, combined with GPS routes and put onto google earth files etc.  I can now virtually recreate my wanderings on cold dull days when the only travelling which seems worthwhile is down memory lane for a bit.  It seems tedious now, but I really appreciate it as the time lengthened between then and now.

By this stage the recriminations have already begun.  A whole series of “why?” runs through my mind, and it all revolves around why didn’t I do more.  Easily forgotten is the routine of ordinary existence, the eating, the sleeping, the preparing to eat and sleep, the need to earn enough so you can eat and sleep.  So many hours are lost to the daily grind still.  I only hope this week is not an indication of how things are going to proceed.  My plans of out and about were left in tatters by realities.

September is the point at which you begin to realise you have left it too late, there is more behind you than ahead of you and when you add it to the fact we have had another poor summer with a recession and feckless government looming over us when it has been pleasant.

Rather than head out into the madding bank holiday crowds, half-crazed people determined to enjoy themselves, entire cities moving out into the countryside to get away from it all I have sat quietly and made plans for a hopeful September.

Brecon Beacons is in the mix, but I fret over the weather, you can never know till you have gone, and then it is too late, you are there.  Are there better things to do than gamble on fickle weather for a week, that is the question.  It is balanced by the other part of the equation, if not now when?  I choose these times to avoid the herd instinct that populates the hills, but the downside is these migratory urges are implanted for reason.  “Get while the getting is good”.

There is actually a guided tour pencilled in as well.  The “nerd” factor is always dangerously high on these things but it is an opportunity to get to see behind doors which a local council usually keeps well and truly locked.  If they just gave me the keys I’d be happy to guide myself about, but that is not going to happen even if I was prepared to dive into local council red-tape and ignorance, I could be a cultural anarchist, where would it end if everyone that helped paid for the upkeep of these buildings wanted to see them?  Life is too short, I will just give them my tax to mismanage and wait till they ask for more.

The other venture has been inspired by a number of things.

Firstly The Solitary Walker blog post regarding Gavin Maxwell and his otter set a thought in motion.  The other great otter work being Tarka the Otter, Henry Williamson, which is now something of an industry, crammed in with Lorna Doone et al.  As luck would have it, I am, at this moment, reading Waterlog by Roger Deakin.  A wonderful book in which he reminds me Henry Williamson also spent time as a Norfolk farmer.

Norfolk became a destination in my mind at this point, but what on earth to do there?

The final bit of the puzzle fell into place with my current disappointment surrounding the locked church door.  Norfolk has far more than its fair share of Round Tower churches.  There are 185 existing examples in England, 124 of them in Norfolk.  These worthy structures are often over 1,000 years old, it is time I put a few more of them on my CV.

Many years ago I visited one example in Belton while exploring The Broads.  It was very nicely maintained and quiet enough to lose yourself for a while.  It was also the start of my growing concern regarding the role the church had in barbaric justice and persecution and quite how much injustice this building had witnessed in the name of truth. 

This was sparked off by a casual notification that trial by ordeal took place in the church during the Middle Ages.  It was not something till that point I had associated with the Church, I am not sure why.  I have since separated the architecture from the institution and recovered an interest in church buildings.

In one of a series of excellent websites concerning Churches in East Anglia, Belton gets a mention.  But it is a sad vandalised, closed off church without a service that is recorded in 2008.

There is also quite a bit of walking mileage to be extracted from churches as their longevity within the landscape has meant a network of ancient rights of way has often sprung up around them.

If I wish to catch a glimpse of things barely changed for 1,000 years I need to hurry, every chance in my lifetime most of it will have gone.  I am too late for some of it, the Norfolk coast is increasingly eroded and the govt. considered response is to do nothing unless significant areas of population are concerned.  So Norfolk and more especially it’s coastline has a simple choice, become more like London or disappear.  There is still enough space left for imagination to work its magic though.  This is one of the main reasons I walk, to catch a glimpse of things missed at any other pace.

The final piece of the jigsaw, I have yet to take a decent picture of a church, if I am not inspired by these architectural rarities then maybe I will never take a decent church photo.

Lets hope I do more and talk less in September.