Walking Class Hero: A detour around Vixen Tor

Walking Class Hero

Welcome to Walking Class Hero a regular blog about walking and the walking environment. Whether you like walking on your own, with friends or in an organised group this blog will cover it. It’ll embrace walking in cities and towns and villages. Walking in the countryside and along the coast and up hills and down dales. Walking through parks and by rivers and across heath and down and moor. It’ll comment on public rights of way, access to open country, permissive paths, public urban space and countryside protection. Basically if you can walk there it’ll be in this blog.

A detour around Vixen Tor – Sunday 29 March 2009

There are, apparently, over 160 tors in Dartmoor National Park’s 953 km². That seems like a lot to me but I come from London and as far as I’m aware we haven’t got any large hills topped with exposed outcrops of granite. You can also find numerous standing stones, not to mention, menhirs, stone circles, kistvaens, stone rows and cairns there. (On Dartmoor – I’ve never seen any of these in London either.) It was to view examples of these things that I journeyed to the west side of the moor on a lovely sunny Sunday spring morning. I like spring. (I like summer, autumn and winter as well come to think of it).

With the sky resembling the opening credits of The Simpsons I started my walk from Merrivale, the site of the Dartmoor Inn and where, nearby, there’s a standing stone, a stone circle and a stone row. From there I headed south towards Vixen Tor. Aaah Vixen Tor…

Vixen Tor 1

Like I said earlier there are over 160 tors in the park and as far as I know Vixen Tor is the only one visitors are forbidden access to. This is a shame – actually this is more than a shame, it’s an outrage – because this impressive and haunting fossilised relic looms sphinx-like on the horizon promising more wonders with every approaching step. Up until 2003 you’d have been able to walk right up to its base, touch the ancient stone and, if you felt the need, to clamber all over it.

Vixen Tor 2 Today you are confronted with ugly signs and unsightly barbed wire. Before the outrage took hold I was mostly struck by the absurdity of the situation. Why would anyone want to, or think they could, restrict access in a place like this? With apologies to Joni Mitchell I found myself singing:

“Took all the tors, put ‘em in a tor museum
And charged the people a dollar and a half just to see ‘em”

The owner, Mrs Alford, claims there is no legal right of public access to the site and that she has been advised by her insurance company to enclose it as she could be liable if anyone injured themselves walking or climbing. Over half of Dartmoor is privately owned (mostly by the Duke of Cornwall, or the Prince of Wales as we know him better) and this liability issue doesn’t bother anyone else.

Vixen Tor 3

Following various demonstrations and organised trespasses supported by groups like The Ramblers, Mrs Alford quickly revealed the greedy side of her nature. She ‘generously’ offered a 10 year agreement to open the land for a one-off payment of £35,000 followed by annual payments of £30,000 plus insurance and legal costs. The Park Authority stuck to its £1500 annual payment offer and noted the ‘gulf existing’ between the two parties.

The campaign for access continues and, spearheaded by action from The Ramblers, Devon County Council’s Public Rights of Way Committee recently decided to unanimously support recommendations for two footpaths across the site. The fight isn’t over yet but this is a significant step towards everybody having a right of access to Vixen Tor.

Dartmoor 1 Dartmoor is such a beautiful and wild location that it’s hard to stay angry for long. There’s always more hills to climb and tors to see. (Did I mention there are over 160 tors on Dartmoor?) Heading south you soon find yourself coming across Heckwood Tor, quickly followed by Pu (or Pew) Tor. My typical countryside walking usually involves following a path, so just deciding to head for geographical landmarks is quite liberating. You have to mind the various leats (artificial watercourse) though.

I began swinging back towards north and passed by Feather Tor while heading for a majestic hill that contains, Little, Middle and Great Staple tors. To get there you head towards and over Whitchurch Common with its cross that appears on the cover of OS Explorer OL28.

dartmoor-2 I ended my walk (the Dartmoor Inn beckoned) at Great Staple Tor which today offered panoramic views of the surrounding countryside and the river Tamar glistening in the distance. I left Cox, Roos and Great Mis tors for another day but while heading for the pub I pondered on the thought that this ‘sceptred isle’ would be far less ‘this other eden, demi paradise’ without our National Parks.