Out on the moor.....

If we get one good day of weather we seem to pay the price with two or three days of rubbish weather.....
The other day we had one of the good days so it was a day out on the moor for Anne and I.....

Years ago when Anne lived in this area she often used to walk up to Pew Tor. As this was one of the Tors that I hadn't visited it was to be our lunch stop for the days walk..

Dartmoor Pony..

 Being camped right on the edge of the moor means that we can head off on a walk without having to use the car to get somewhere first which is always a plus mark for a site in our view...
The route up to Pew Tor took us along some very pretty Devon lanes before opening up on to the moor proper.....
We saw quite a few of the delightful Dartmoor ponies on route.....

Anne taking in the view from Pew Tor

 When we got up to the tor the wind was blowing quite strongly... 
One of the good things about choosing a tor as a lunch stop is that you can always find a nice little spot out of the wind...just tuck yourself in amongst the rocks and you will have a 'room with a view'...... a perfect place out of the wind with a superb view for you lunch stop...

The view from our lunch stop on Pew Tor

 After we had finished our lunch we checked out the map...... Anne had told me that she remembered that there was a cross not too far from the tor..... she seemed to think that it was the other side of Feather Tor which we could see in the distance.... looking at the map we planned the rest of our walk creating a loop that would take in the cross before heading back toward the campsite by a different route from our outward leg......

The Beckamoor Cross

 The cross stands to the north west of Feather Tor.....
It is a granite cross known as either the Beckamoor Cross or more romatically the Windy Post and Windy Stone...
It stands next to the murmuring Grimstone and Sortridge leet.....
English Heritage notes that the cross is of medieval origin and date it to between 1400 and 1499. (Although that is disputed)
Nowadays the cross is showing the effects of time from having cattle and ponies rubbing up against it and giving it a somewhat drunken tilt.....

Apparently the purpose of this cross was to act as a marker on the Tavistock to Ashburton trans-moor track which was a medieval route connecting Buckfast and Tavistock  Abbeys....

Another view of the Beckamoor Cross

I have always had a fascination for standing stones and crosses and have spent lots of time over the years taking images of them.....
Normally I prefer to take B&W images of these interesting subjects and have shown a few on my photographic blog..... However for this blog I have shown the cross in colour....