Drewsteignton

Drewsteignton stands above the Teign Gorge on the north eastern edge of Dartmoor, a village of thatch and granite around a square with a church and an inn. It is an old settlement in old country, and the ground around it holds some of the most important prehistoric remains in the region, including the Spinsters' Rock burial chamber, a Neolithic dolmen whose great capstone still rests on its uprights and which is among the finest of its kind in the south west.

The village is best known today for what lies just below and beyond it. Castle Drogo, the last castle built in England, was designed by Edwin Lutyens for the grocery magnate Julius Drewe and completed in 1930, and now belongs to the National Trust; it stands on the edge of the gorge with an extraordinary view up the Teign. Below, Fingle Bridge carries an old packhorse route across the river at one of the most beautiful spots on Dartmoor, and the paths along the gorge from there are justly popular. The moor proper lies a little further west, but this corner of it is hard to beat.