Walking on Dartmoor - Zeal Tor Tramway and Avon Dam

 

This is a walk we actually did in November last year but I decided to write about it now as it would be nice to remember a time when we could go outside like this.  Though this walk is a looped one, it uses a couple of longer through walks and an old tramroad and is meant to give you a chance to see historic life on Dartmoor.  It's quite a short 7-mile walk, but as we weren't sure about what the weather was going to do it seemed like quite a good option.  We did find this walk in a book on short walks on Dartmoor (there's also a description of it here), but we decided to actually do it back to front as we preferred the idea of going straight onto the moor and ending with the walk on the surfaced road from the dam. 

The weather did start off pretty well and we were quite hopeful it would hold to the end, but the mist quickly came in and made viewing pretty bad and navigation a little bit interesting.  We did borrow my Dad's OS map to take with us as mine hadn't arrived yet, but neither of us could find our compasses and we ended up using the compass on one of our phones (not advisable at all) to help with some navigation later on.  Not the best idea, but it did get us back onto the right track in the end.

We started the walk by parking at Shipley Bridge, a very busy car park which was difficult to find a space in.  I would advise going pretty early on to get a space, something we didn't do and so had to find an 'interesting' spot.  There are toilets here and a number of industrial buildings which were mainly trying, but failing, to utilise the clay and peat in the area.  First, we followed the road towards the Avon Dam, before heading left on the road to the Avon Filtration Station and finding the point where the Zeal Tor Tramroad connects to this road.  This took a little bit of time as there are a number of tracks, but we were quickly heading up onto the moor.

Unfortunately, the view didn't last longer than about 10 minutes and a nice look at some cows before the mist came down and obscured any of the historic sites we had planned to look at whilst we were walking.  It also made it difficult to navigate off any landmarks and, without a compass to keep us on course, we did end up going a little off course.  However, a good nosy at the map and a look at the phone compass made us realise we had been baring further south than we should have been.  A little change in our orientation meant that we soon came into view of the Eastern White Barrow looming out of the mist and headed straight for it.  We then cut across to the Western White Barrow and Petre's Cross (which doesn't really look like a cross as the arms have been knocked off) we had originally meant to head to before our little detour, before turning east to heading down to the River Avon.

The weather cleared a little at this point which allowed us to get a view of what looks like some settlements visible on Brock Hill, before closing in again taking away any possible idea we might have had of exploring them this time.  

The path down towards the river was pretty obvious and easy to follow, probably due to the fact that it's part of the Two Moors Way, but interestingly slippery.  There is meant to be a crossing further towards the dam as part of Abbot's Way path, but it wasn't particularly obvious so instead, we stayed on the Two Moors Ways and headed over the river using a little clapper bridge.  I love these bridges and it always amazes me that they're still standing after all this time and the amount of use they've had.  We then turned south onto Abbot's Way towards the dam.

This route takes you by the Huntingdon Cross (the original maker for Abbot's Way which was also used by Sir William Petre to mark the boundary of his estate in the mid-16th Century) and by some more settlements somewhere in that mist before you reached the dam and the path becomes a surfaced road.  

As you would expect for a walk on the moor in the mist, most of this path very wet and sometimes quite muddy.  Was definitely happy to have my waterproofs and walking boots for this one.  However, because it was so close, I didn't actually need as many layers as I was expecting.  Once back at the car park we headed straight for the nice food van there to take the opportunity to have a nice hot drink and a cake.  Just what you need after a walk in misty, cold, damp conditions.  This was just a taster of the walking that can be done on Dartmoor and I'm definitely going to be doing more once we can get back out there.