Mary Tavy

Mary Tavy takes its name from its church of St Mary and from the River Tavy that runs beside it, and its history is written in metal. This was one of the busiest mining parishes on Dartmoor, where lead, silver, tin and copper were worked, and in the nineteenth century Wheal Friendship was among the most productive mines in Devon. The village grew to house the men who worked underground, and the shape of it still reflects that: a working settlement rather than an old agricultural village, strung along the road on the western edge of the moor.

The most visible reminder stands just north of the village beside the main road. Wheal Betsy, a ruined engine house now in the care of the National Trust, is the last of its kind still standing on Dartmoor and one of the most photographed industrial remains in the National Park. Behind the village the moor rises steeply towards Gibbet Hill and Tavy Cleave, and the leats and wheel pits that powered the mines can still be traced across the hillsides. It is a fine place to see how thoroughly the moor was once industrialised.