The walk is about 5-6km in length, does not take in any steep climbs or difficult ground and unless you’re unlucky enough to dip a toe when crossing the stepping stones at the Lyd you shouldn’t get wet feet. The car park is located at the grid reference shown above. Turn off the A386 Tavistock to Okehampton road onto the small, unmade lane beside the large road sign a few meters north of the Dartmoor Inn.

Leave the car park by the southern gate (if you start walking up the track beside the wall aiming to the left of Brat (or Bray) Tor you’re going backwards round the walk, it doesn’t make much odds but I think it flows better the other way) and follow the grass track that climbs very gently up, curving to the left. This is the old Miners track to Wheal Mary Emma and almost immediately there is evidence of mining activity; a few small mounds of spoil off to your right mark the site of an old shaft.


As the track descends the far side of the hill the spoil heaps of Wheal West Mary Emma on the nearside of the River Lyd and East Mary Emma on the far side are obvious. Just before reaching the point on the track above the first spoil heap note the narrow, shallow gulley running up the hillside marking the line of the flat rods used to transfer power from the water wheel on the valley floor to the works on the hilltop.

Looking down on the first spoil heap a shallow gulley can be seen to the left, the remains of the wheelpit for the 40 foot wheel that once worked here. Immediately to the left of the wheelpit are 2 circular buddles where rotating heather brushes stirred the crushed ore allowing a feed of water to carry away rock sand while the heavier cassiterite tin ore settled out. Between the buddles and the Lyd are 2 shallow settling ponds.

To the left of the track a little further on the remains of a building, possibly a miners dry and/or counthouse stand next to a further spoil heap and a shallow gully marking what was once the main adit entrance to workings inside the hill. More spoil heaps stand along the edge of the Lyd, these are comprised almost entirely of hard grey-green metamorphosed country rock. If you are very lucky, an hour spent picking over the tips may produce for you a small piece of brown cassiterite ore. However, from the combined works of Wheal Mary Emma (named after the mine captain’s wife), which operated from about 1849-52 output was not great. Indeed Dines notes ‘The mine appears to have been little more than a prospect’ and records no figures but it was noted for fine cassiterite specimens. After various attempts to restart the mine as part of North Dartmoor Consols it was finally abandoned in about 1880.

Cross the Lyd on the stepping-stones noting that these are massive granite boulders. Just at this point for a few 100 meters the Lyd takes the line of the granite-country rock contact, hence the metamorphosed nature of the material in the spoil tips just passed, whereas the tips now in front of you are entirely of granite.

Follow the track up the hill amongst the pits, lodeback open works and shafts until it makes a T junction with another track. Look back at the mine and locate the miners dry ruin recalling the blocked adit entrance next to it. Scanning up the hillside you can now see another pile of spoil and the open works that followed the course of the lode.

Crossover the track and follow the much narrower gently rising sheep track that parallels the course of the Doetor Brook. About half way to the top there is a picturesque view of Doetor Falls at the head of a shallow basin that the stream has cut out of the hillside, which makes a short photo detour if you don’t mind wet feet. Back on the track continue up to the small dam, which once diverted water into the leat, which runs away southwards. This was part of the Tavistock water works and taps both run off from the moor but also a natural aquifer in the granite. To the north you now have a good view of Widgery Cross perched on top Brat Tor, the cross, erected to commemorate the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria.

Begin to skirt round the base of Brat Tor, passing a small tin prospect on your right, little more than a shallow gulley with a few mounds of bare stones. In front and to your right opens out the huge basin of the catchment for the Doetor brook, even a modest rainstorm here turns the brook into a torrent. Along the horizon from left to right Great Links Tor, Chat Tor, Sharp Tor, Hare Tor & Ger Tor sit on top the ridge that separates Doetor common from Tavy Cleave, Doe Tor (with the army range flag pole) in the foreground. Follow the Doetor Brook as it curves sharply northward and the vast tin streaming works of Wheal Fredrick (aka Foxholes) opens out in front of you.

The Wheal Fredrick counthouse (SX545853) is as well preserved a mining ruin as you can expect to find on the open moor and dates to the 1870s. Between the counthouse and the brook are 2 circular buddles, one dry, the other always a pond. Immediately beyond the counthouse and buddles is the line of the leat, wheelpit and tailrace. The wheelpit is now filled with rubble but the base is clearly visible as is the end of the leat embankment on the hillside above that carried the water to the point where it transferred to a timber sluice on stilts to provide power to the waterwheel.



The leat is well worth examining, trace its route along the contour of the hillside a short distance but do not go too far. Instead return to the counthouse and take the lower flat track alongside the brook. This is the route of the tramway and the granite sleepers with holes drilled into them for the fixings for the rails are clearly visible.

The choice of route is yours for a while: either walk along the edge of the streaming works from where you can get a sense of the scale of the works especially as it opens out and rounds the corner or walk amongst the lines of spoil on the floor of the works. Again it is still possible if you are lucky to find alluvial tin pebbles or shode stones amongst the tips. Given the scope of these works and that they are just one of many on the moor it is not surprising that the Port of Plymouth authority tried to close them down in the 1600s because of the silting up problems in the docks. Not surprising also that the miners working in this and even more remote and inhospitable parts of the moor threatened to riot at the prospect that their hard won livelihood might be taken away.


At the top end of the works you reach the cart track running from Lydford to the peat works at Bleak House. This also marks the boundary of 2 mine setts, Wheal Fredrick below and North Dartmoor Consols on the slope of Great Links Tor, though there is little to mark the workings of the latter bar a shallow gulley and a few grassy mounds.



If you still feel fit you might want to climb to Great Links Tor, a classic valley tor, from the top of which you can see the ruins of Bleak House and the Rattlebrook valley with its own mining heritage and prehistoric settlements. Alternatively turn downhill along the course of the cart track following its course between Arms Tor and Bray Tor, past another tin streaming gulley and all the way back to the car park. For another photo opportunity cross the Lyd and turn downstream and find the waterfall a few 100m further on.

© Chris Popham, Nov, 2006.

Ref: Dines, H.G., 1956, The Metalliferous Mining Region of South-West England, 1994 reprint, p717.

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