Moor of mystery
Each issue, we investigate the most ghostly places in Britain. Here we take a look at the hauntingly beautiful Dartmoor National Park
It’s a place where wild landscapes, restless spirits and ancient myths are intertwined. Renowned for its untamed, windswept beauty, Dartmoor is also famous for its many legends and hauntings.
Dartmoor National Park in southwest Devon, which covers 368 square miles of rocky countryside, is rich in folktales of hell hounds, sad ghosts… even a pair of monstrous disembodied hands.
Over the years, numerous people have had eerie experiences on Dartmoor.
In October 2017, local couple Ben and Maria Landricombe were walking their dog, Smokey, in Lydford Gorge when they came across a remote house with a swing in the grounds.
Maria sat on the swing while keen photographer Ben snapped a shot of her. It was only when they got home that a friend pointed out what appeared to be a pale, ghostly figure looking out of an upstairs window of the house in the photograph.
Ben said: ‘We don’t know what it was. We’ve never seen a ghost until now. The dog was acting really strangely too — all shifty and scared.’
A Dartmoor landmark where ghostly activity is regularly experienced is Kitty Jay’s Grave near the village of Manaton. Kitty, an 18th century housemaid, hanged herself in a farm building after getting pregnant out of wedlock to her boss’s son. Kitty and her unborn child were buried at a crossroads — back then, it was believed this would confuse the unquiet spirits of people who had committed suicide, so they couldn’t haunt the living.
Kitty’s body was later dug up and reburied, with stones used to mark her final resting place. Now, fresh flowers, said by some to be laid there by pixies, regularly appear on her grave. And a cloaked spectral figure has been seen standing mournfully at the grave, its head buried in its hands.
Cherrybrook Bridge is another Dartmoor location renowned for otherworldly events. In fact, the bridge is so famous for sightings of a pair of grotesque hairy hands,it’s become known as Hairy Hands Bridge.
Back in the 1920s, a doctor was driving his motorbike, with his two children in the sidecar, towards the bridge near the village of Postbridge. Suddenly, he shouted to the youngsters that hairy hands were trying to take control of the vehicle. The motorbike veered off the road and crashed, killing the
