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Belstone and Okehampton boundary stones
Belstone, Devon
Grid ref: SX 6124 9148
Main image: Photograph by Glavind Strachan Photography
Three boundary stones stand close together on Belstone Common near Lower Tor, a little south of Higher Tor, where the parishes of Belstone and Okehampton meet. Two are Belstone stones. The larger and newer is inscribed BB, for Belstone Bounds. The smaller and older one, at SX 61244 91484, is recorded as BB/P in one account and as BBP in another. The third is inscribed OPB, which visitors read as Okehampton Parish boundstone. Dartefacts catalogues the three as Okehampton Ham/ Belstone/ Forest BS No.01, No.02 and No.03 in its catalogue numbering; the numbers are not carved on the stones.
Stones like these mark the parish line that is walked when the bounds are beaten. They are described in Dave Brewer's Dartmoor Boundary Markers and in The Book of Belstone (2002), and in the Dartmoor Explorations survey of the Belstone boundary. The area has several other markers, among them Okehampton parish stones at Cullever Steps. Ranges lie nearby on the moor, so check the firing times before you go.
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Leighon tor. Photograph by Glavind Strachan Photography“There can be no sameness in a landscape of tors when every tor changes its features according to the point of view from which you look at it.”
Also on Our DartmoorHallowed Earth: A Lifetime in Photography — Over 230 photographs from fifty years of Chris Chapman's work, mostly unpublished, documenting everyday life on Dartmoor, with his own reflections on childhood, farming and the countryside.
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