The peat is dry and soft underfoot, a springy sponge topped with a green scouring pad of heather and gorse. A narrow path weaves through the abrasive stems, from the remote Warren House Inn (with its famous fire, said to have been burning continuously since 1845) down into a valley littered with the ruins of mine buildings. Vegetation has healed the scars of centuries of industry, but its evidence is everywhere – from overgrown spoil heaps and wheel pits to gullies carved into the hillside.
This is the start of my favourite walk on central Dartmoor – a circuit of about five miles which passes through medieval farmsteads and alongside the walled bronze age settlement of Grimspound.
