Difficulty Moderate
Length 10.1miles/16.2km
Duration Five hours 30 minutes
Start/end location Widecombe-in-the-Moor village green
Map OS Explorer OL28
Step-by-step details and maps ramblers.org.uk/bowerman

The wind suddenly picked up and the drizzle turned to a squall. All we could see ahead were rocky outcrops, slanting rain, a murky void of greyness. It was like wading through a dense mist. Then, in the dim morning light, I spied a shape, a skinny, black form, coming towards us, quickly, keenly… it grew bigger and yet bigger and its long tongue lolled around its strangely smiling mouth. It was a big black dog.

This is all true, though it was actually a cute pointing griffon, a hairy hound that seemed to love gambolling around in the rain. But it was more than apt, as we were half an hour into a wonderful 10-mile circular walk from the picture-postcard village of Widecombe-in-the-Moor and only a short distance from Hounds Tor, said to have inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to pen his most famous Holmes story, The Hound of the Baskervilles.

The going at first was easy, down a country lane – we skirted two local pubs here, the Old Inn and the Rugglestone Inn – and up along the side of a pretty stream. Then came a climb past a hamlet called Bonehill to cross boggy grassland to the spot where we met the fluffy dog.

The path cut through damp, dead bracken, then the tamed landscape of Holwell Lawn and a pony club field littered with cross-country jumps. It was time for coffee and a snack. We were only at around 1,200 feet above sea level, but the cloud had momentarily cleared and the temperature dropped. We sought shelter behind a drystone wall. There are hundreds of miles of these criss-crossing Dartmoor, lumpier and untidier than their Yorkshire equivalents – perhaps they need to be sturdier to deal with the extremes of temperature and westerlies that blow in from the Atlantic. The first rock formation was Greator Rocks, a smallish, spiky affair that reminded me of the plates on a stegosaurus’ back. A rainbow appeared from nowhere – Dartmoor weather is delightfully changeable – and its arc seemed to plunge into the next outcrop. Ten minutes up a gentle incline and we were beneath Hounds Tor. This was much more impressive, with groups of stacks, boulders and clefts spread out over a wide area. Just beyond these two outcrops were the stone traces of a Saxon village, Hundatora, surely behind the name of Hounds Tor.

The descent led us to a car park and across a road where we reached a grave covered in flowers and wreaths, though bereft of a tombstone. It was the grave of Kitty Jay, a pauper’s daughter who was in service at the house of a local landowner in 1790. She fell pregnant to the son of the household and was cast out by the family. The poor woman hanged herself. The good people of the parish determined that she was unworthy of burial in consecrated ground. They chose the roadside spot, not only as an insult but because it was on the edge of town and they thought it prudent if her ghost was kept a good way from living souls.

A beautiful bridleway guided us over a hill, from which there were lovely views back down a valley that leads to Widecombe (there’s a road here, providing a handy short cut for those who want to limit their walk to a five-miler). The path continued by a stand of conifers clad in moss, alive with robins, nuthatches and small flocks of starlings, then up on to a great muscle of treeless moorland.

Grimspound is, for many, one of the star attractions of Dartmoor. The name derives from the Norse god Grim (also known as Odin) but the site, which comprises the remains of 24 stone huts, was settled as early as the 14th century BC. It’s quite a thought, and the tall stones serve as a gateway to Hamel Down, our final stretch of wide-open moorland before descending into Widecombe in the Moor and the cosy Rugglestone Inn for hearty steaks, and a well-earned pint of local ale.

Get there

Buses 193 and 271 run from Newton Abbot to Widecombe-in-the-Moor. Check timetables before you travel as some routes are seasonal (countrybusdevon.co.uk). By car, from M5, take A38 to Heathfield, A382 to Bovey Tracey and B3387, to Widecombe-in-the-Moor.