Longash Wood

Longash Wood clothes the steep east bank of the River Walkham below Hucken Tor, in the parish of Walkhampton, a short walk from Merrivale and its famous prehistoric stone rows. The wood takes its name from Longash, a farm on the moor above it reached by the Longash Leat, which runs from the Merrivale stone rows to the farm; the adjoining open moorland, Longash Common, carries three further stone alignments and a stone circle that form part of the wider Merrivale ceremonial complex (Historic England scheduled monument 1013429), listed separately as Stone circle, Longash Common and Three stone alignments, Longash Common.

Two granite tors carry the Longash name but are easily confused. Longash Tor (SX 5506 7444, 325m) stands directly above Longash farm as a series of low, fissured outcrops; despite lying on private land it is easily seen from the public bridleway below, and offers wide views to Vixen Tor and the disused Merrivale Quarry. It was known to Dartmoor letterboxers from around 1996, when Tim Jenkinson set up a stamp there, though the name itself was not formally recorded until 2013. Longash Wood Tor (SX 5458 7384, 240m) is a distinct, lower outcrop about half a mile to the south, set within Longash Wood itself under the sprawling mass of Hucken Tor and close to the River Walkham. Identified only in early 2023, it centres on a giant slab propped on a smaller rock, standing in deep shade beneath oaks, with two small caves formed among the rocks; it is reached via the public bridlepath south of Little Wonder Bridge.

In 2024, the entomologist Clive Turner and a second collector recorded beetle specimens at Longash as one of three Dartmoor sites surveyed that year, alongside Berra Tor and Shaugh Woods, work now held in Natural History Museum collections and searchable via GBIF.

Sources: Tors of Dartmoor, Longash Wood Tor, Tors of Dartmoor, Longash Tor, Dartefacts, Longash (farm).

Photo: woodland near Hucken Tor, close to Longash Wood (the wood itself is on private land, unphotographed), by John Cole, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Geograph.

Photo: woodland near Hucken Tor, close to Longash Wood (the wood itself is on private land, unphotographed), by John Cole, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Geograph.