Throwleigh

Throwleigh is a small granite village on the northern edge of the moor, gathered around the church of St Mary the Virgin with Cosdon Hill rising behind it. It is a farming parish rather than a visitor destination, and the buildings show it: thatch and granite, a church house, a village green and a cross, all built from what came out of the ground within a mile or two. The lanes here are deep and narrow, and the village feels considerably further from the modern world than it actually is.

The parish reaches up onto the open moor, and from the village paths climb towards Shilstone Tor and Cosdon, with its cairns and stone rows, and on into the empty northern moor beyond. This is a good place to begin a walk if the busier honeypots hold no appeal, and the combination of prehistoric remains, medieval farmsteads and open moorland within a short distance of one another is typical of the northern edge at its best. Throwleigh asks nothing of visitors and is all the better for it.