Haytor

Haytor, from the south

Last week to climb up to the base of Haytor, that is to say chickening out of climbing on the crags proper. Fine day for it, with little wind. Lots of French schoolchildren. Heard one cuckoo, saw one goldfinch, both heard skylarks in the air and saw them on the ground, on the assumption that they look quite like small thrushes. I don't recall seeing the crests that Bing turns up, so now not sure. Unusually, no raptors.

Wetherbeaten post

A rather weatherbeaten post above the picturesque quarry, popular for picnics and trysts generally, the sort of post, if not the sort of ironmongery, which used to be used for the fences around houses built in the 1950's. Posts which probably last a lot longer than the softwood posts they mostly use now. Against that, one should count the huge carbon burn of all the cement factories around the world: a big contributor to global warming.

Haytor junction

The nearest that they get to Clapham Junction up on Haytor. This being a junction on the granite railway, used for a few decades of the nineteenth century for moving granite down to the boats. We noticed several piles of large rocks, clearly blasted out of something, suggesting that the quarries on Haytor were closed down rather abruptly.

Water supply

Once down from the tor, we turned into the Moorland Hotel, where they are working hard to get the place open again for the new season. Major refurbishment. There is also a café brasserie, in a smart shed in front of the main building, perhaps reflecting the fact that the new owner also has a large hotel in Torquay. Called the Tinpickle & Rhum, partly in recognition of the tin mining that used to go on in the area. It will be interesting to see whether the place works - given that on this weekday lunchtime the trade was mostly pensioner couples like ourselves seeking tea and coffee. See reference 2.

Next door there looked to be what had once been the home farm for the big house, now the hotel, the animals from which might well have been watered using the leat snapped above. We saw the same sort of thing on Holne Moor last year. Just to be on the safe side, I took bottled water, from Scotland as it happens.

Day closed with hot meat pies and boiled vegetables. Pies from the same butcher who had supplied the hogs' pudding noticed a few days ago.

Well not quite closed, as having failed to find ITV3 on the television supplied, we had to learn how put DVDs into the slot in the side and get them out again, in the absence of instructions. I correctly remembered that it was done manipulating the two buttons next to the slot, but even having managed two ejections, and even having written down 'Keep switched on. Hold top button down. Double press on bottom button' after the first ejection, I would not care to say what sequence exactly did the trick.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=haytor. The only visit to Haytor which the blog is admitting to, more than eleven years ago. Not completely convinced as the visit I remember does not quite align with this post.

Reference 2: https://www.tinpickleandrhum.com/.