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WALK 3

Michelcombe, Sandy Way, Holne Ridge, Hapstead Ford, Chalk Ford, Scorriton (or back to Michelcombe)

Start	In the village of Michelcombe, Map Ref 696689.
Distance	10.5km (6.5 miles)
Grade	Moderate

Please be careful to park without causing an obstruction or blocking gateways. There is the Church House Inn where Archbishop Ramsey used to stay. You will pass, or not as the case may be, the Tradesman's Arms at Scorriton towards the end of the walk.

This walk starts by heading west up the lane from the small village of Michelcombe. Just by a gate a track runs off north to Hone Moor by Great Combe. You go straight on. The lane now becomes a rocky track climbing quite steeply until you reach a gate called Lane Head. It is here that a path from the Mardle joins the track which is the alternative route for the return journey if you wish to miss out Scorriton. It is also at this gate that you move out from the enclosures onto the open moor.

A few hundred metres on you will pass over the dry bed of the leat of the Wheal Emma mine. If you look at the map you will see that it is a remarkable bit of engineering as it contours for miles round Holne Moor to above Ventford Reservoir and beyond. However, away to your left the leat steepens to run down to the Mardle where the water was once used in the copper mines there.

From now on the track you are following is called the Sandy Way which is one of the ancient trackways of Dartmoor. It was probably used by early travellers going between towns as far distant as Ashburton and Tavistock. Certainly farmers and tinners used the track to move between Holne and Swincombe and on to Princetown. When French and American prisoners were held at the prison at Princetown many local people travelled there to barter with the prisoners and the Sandy Way was the easiest way to get there in the early 19th century from this south-east corner of the moor.

When you reach the disused tin mine workings with the deep gullies the Sandy Way peters out but in the old days it would have worked its way round Aunee or Avon Head to Skir Hill, Ter Hill and then on; there are still traces of it.

You need now to aim towards Ryder's Hill, south-west, and drop down to Mardle Head and the tin workings there, just above Hapstead Ford. The ford is a river crossing associated with ancient pathways on Dartmoor for travellers who wished to reach farms and villages further to the south. You should be able to get across the Mardle without difficulty here unless there has been heavy rain. There is, in fact, another ford about 1km (0.5 mile) downstream but if you have difficulties with Hapstead Ford, the lower one will also be tricky. If, however, you wish to go back to Michelcombe you need to stay on the true left bank of the Mardle and when you are more or less opposite Mardle Ring the track begins to slant up the hill and crosses the dry Wheal Emma leat by a small bridge and reaches Lane Head where you can follow the lane back down to Michelcombe the way you came. This of course is a shorter walk by some 3km (2 miles).

Start of the track that leads to Lane Head

If you stay with the longer walk the track now runs along the true right bank of the river until you reach Mardle Ring – marked as Homestead on the maps; this is a prehistoric enclosure with a hut circle in its upper part. From here the path stays high above the river until you cross Snowdon Brook and then on down to the bottom of the steep-sided valley of the Mardle.

Ignore the various other paths and make your way to Chalk Ford where there is a new footbridge. From here follow the obvious lane that climbs up through fields and then drops down to Scorriton.

All that remains now is to follow the small road past the Tradesman's Arms on your right, which is bound to be closed unless you have timed your walk very carefully, and after nearly 1km (0.5 mile) you will arrive back at Michelcombe.

The next three walks and Walk 3 have common ground so it would be possible to link some of them together and even end at the starting place of one of the others, if you have someone who would be willing to drive round and pick you up.