Old Crockern and the Spirit of Dartmoor

It was so rewarding to see just how many protestors turned up on Dartmoor over the weekend to protest the right to roam and wild camp.

   

 

More than 3,000 people joined one of the UK’s largest ever countryside access protests on the Dartmoor estate of wealthy landowner, Conservative party donor and hedge fund manager Alexander Darwall. 

Darwall, Dartmoor’s sixth-largest landowner, sparked outrage earlier this month when he won a case in the high court overturning the right to freely camp on large parts of Dartmoor, arguing that the right had never existed. The area had been the only place in England where there was a right to wild camp without seeking permission. 

Meanwhile, the announcement last week of a hastily negotiated permissive access deal between the moor’s leading landowners and Dartmoor National Park Authority did not satisfy campaigners. This simply allows people to camp in a smaller area of the park in exchange for a yet-to-be-decided management fee paid out of public funds. A representative for Darwall confirmed that some of his land had been entered into the wild camping scheme. 

'Taxpayers are now having to pay for something that was free for all of us a week ago. That’s wrong. And these areas can be easily withdrawn,' said Steve Ward-Booth, 48, a local GP, who wild camps with his children. 'It’s a short step to fencing off the land for pheasant shoots for the privileged minority and stopping walkers. Where does it end?' 

(Source: The Guardian)

I was also thrilled to see Old Crockern make an appearance at the protest. 

Crockern Tor stands at the centre of Dartmoor and was where tin miners would meet to adjudicate disputes. There is also a folk belief that 'Old Crockern' had a guardian spirit of the moor, who rides out at night on a skeleton horse. In Sabine Baring-Gould's publication Book of the West there was once a rich man from Manchester who came to Dartmoor and bought up land surrounding the Tor. He enclosed it and began farming around it, to the fury of all the local people. One of them had a vision that Old Crockern was also angry and cursed the man thus: 'If he scratches my back, I'll tear out his pocket.' This ended up proving true as the Manchester landowner wasted all his money trying to farm the area around the Tor, 'scratching its back' and was reduced to poverty. 

Another tale of Old Crockern is that on dark, stormy nights he travels over to Wistman’s Wood and releases the ‘Wisht Hounds’ from their kennels. He would then ride off in pursuit of any lonely travellers that may be unfortunate to be tramping the moors.

I suspect that Old Crockern is going to be kept very busy in the coming months ...