Merrivale - 10 Tors including Staple - Roos - Cox - nr Vixen

Dave Pawley

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This lovely moorland walk offers some of the best views from the south of Dartmoor and will lead you across and upto at least 10 Tors in the Merrivale area of Dartmoor. You can get to the top of most of the Tors without difficulty and the walk will finish with a close up view of Vixen Tor.

How close depends on CROW (Countryside and Rights of Way Act). If you enjoy visiting Dartmoor and having brilliant views from high vantage points then this is your walk. The walk starts with a triple staple, no not an ice dance move, read the route description to see what this entails and it ends with a close up view of one of the most spectacular tors on the whole of Dartmoor, the lovely Vixen Tor. Vixen Tor remains one the best known tors but it is no longer visited by walkers. Sadly, since 2001, access to the Tor has been curtailed by the new owner, after almost 40 years of permitted access from the previous owners. Whatever the reason the present owner has for barring access, to all walkers on Dartmoor such a closure is completely unacceptable. CROW findings indicate that the area should be graded as open access land but the owner is still contesting this and at the time of writing this description she is now citing the "human rights act" in an attempt to prevent access under CROW being applied. We await the results of the enquiry with keen interest.

I hope that I will be able to change the Vixen Tor waypoint to include a visit to the Tor before too long. If I cannot then it will really be a supreme injustice and will make a mockery locally of the CROW philosophy.

In addition to a plethora of Tors to visit there is also a close up view of an example of a water supply pre SWW. It is a bulls eye stone controlled water outlet from one leat into another. A bulls eye stone is a 1" circular hole in a stone block through which water can pass, diverting a controlled amount from one water flow to another pipe or leat. You will see the stone at close hand on this walk.With its heady mix of moorland, rights of way through enclosed land, superb views and links to the old ways of Dartmoor this is a walk to be savoured. At the end of the walk you are only 500 metres from the Dartmoor Inn at Merrivale and what a pleasant way to end the walk with a drink at a traditional moorland pub. It once served the local population and mainly the workers from the Merrivale stone quarry, adjacent to the inn, one of the last quarries on Dartmoor to be closed incidentally.

England - South West England - Devon - Dartmoor