Manaton

Manaton is a village and civil parish on the south-eastern side of Dartmoor, about four miles south of Moretonhampstead. The parish covers 2,601 hectares and had 316 residents at the 2021 census. The village is in two parts: an upper village around the green, village hall and church, and a lower one centred on the pub, serving the former hamlets of Freelands and Water.

The church of St Winifred is granite, Grade I listed, with a nave and chancel built in the early 15th century and aisles and tower added later that century. The painted rood screen dates from about 1500 and lost its figures at the Reformation. Three of the six bells are medieval, the oldest thought to be from about 1440 to 1450. Lightning struck the tower in 1779 and wrecked the chancel. A 19th-century rector, the Rev. C. Carwithen, is said to have smashed the churchyard cross at night to stop the custom of carrying coffins round it three times. That is a story, and no record of it has been found.

John Galsworthy and his wife stayed at Wingstone farmhouse between 1903 and 1923, and Jay's Grave nearby inspired his 1916 story The Apple Tree. Hound Tor deserted medieval village, with foundations of four stone buildings, is in the parish area, as is Grimspound, a late Bronze Age settlement of 24 huts inside a boundary wall.