Combestone Tor - Venford Reservoir - Horn’s Cross

This shortish walk is used each year by the University of East Anglia for their post-graduate students to study the environment and its changes through history.  It is rich in evidence in changes in land use, and is a fairly easy, but pleasant walk.

Start in the car park at Combestone Tor, Grid Ref. SX 669 718 where there is room for about a dozen cars.  This car park is midway between Hexworthy and Holne.

Walk to the eastern side of the tor and as you begin to descend in a direction just north of east, look out for a faint path that will take you down the hill to cross two leats, one dry (Wheal Emma Leat) and the other still in use (Holne Moor Leat - built to supply water for the mill at Buckfastleigh).  As you descend the hill towards the River Dart valley, you will eventually come across a more substantial path running NW to SE.  Turn right onto this track in a SE direction and follow it until you reach a clapper bridge over a small steam running down a valley towards the River Dart.

Having crossed the steam, don’t take the path that runs ahead uphill, but look for a path that heads in a NE direction.  This path will bear right to an easterly direction and eventually will become a clear path, in which you will find a pipeline showing through the earth in places.

This pipeline was created to provide more water for the Venford Reservoir, and it carries water for 5 miles from the River Swincombe.  Last time I walked along this path I put my ear to the pipe to see if I could hear water flowing through it - and yes, it is still a working pipeline!

The pipeline path will take you through one of Dartmoor’s ancient forests, falling steeply on your left to the River Dart, mainly hidden in the trees.  But there are a few sudden clearances where you will be rewarded with stunning views across the valley.

As you continue on the clear and fairly level path, it will bend gently to the right until you end up at Venford Reservoir.

Venford Reservoir can hold up to 198 million gallons of water and the dam, built of local Dartmoor granite and granite from Merrivale quarry, was completed in 1907.  There is an information board full of interesting facts about the area near the car park, and there are also public toilets located here.

Cross the road and begin to follow the fence in a SW direction, pausing at a gate to go in and have a look at a set of mortar stones on which tin ore was crushed by mechanically driven stamps.

You can circumnavigate the reservoir on a path inside the fence - a pleasant walk, though muddy in places.  But for this walk follow the outside of the fence on a grassy track where you will come across open V shaped workings from tin extraction that date back to late mediaeval times.  Also, if you search around this area, you will find remains of mediaeval longhouses as well as bronze age hut circles.

Eventually you will be forced by a fence to turn in a more NW direction and find the Holne Moor Reave, and ancient boundary wall.  You will now follow this on reasonably good tracks where you may be fortunate to find an ancient triple stone row.  The stones only protrude a little from the ground now, but they are there if you look for them. 

From the stone row you will be able to see Horn’s Cross on the skyline in a westerly direction.  Aim towards this, leaving the reave to walk up a faint grassy track.

Horn’s Cross is a mediaeval granite cross which is one of many marking the route between Buckfast and Tavistock Abbeys.  The shaft is a replacement, but the head of the cross is original.

From the cross, head north, downhill and you will soon see Combestone Tor and the car park appearing as the ground drops away.  A good grassy path leads to the Tor. 

As you descend the hill, notice the many field boundaries.  These ‘walls’ date back to the bronze age, showing that the moor must have been well populated at that period.

If you feel in need of refreshment, a short drive west to Hexworthy may reward you with a jar, (or two), at the Forest Inn.