Dartmoor Letterboxing

John · Hiker Joined: 18 Nov 2007 Posts: 159

In the early 80's I started walking on the moors, now that I had a car. I had already lived in Plymouth for 3 or 4 years. Around 1986 I found "Fenton's Find" at the back end of Down Tor. No idea what it was, but the book in the box gave a hint about letterboxing. So I found out more, and then thought I'd see about finding other letterboxes.

So, back to Down Tor, now with my own book to collect the stamps. Could I find Fenton's Find again? Could I heck! Sad

A look at the O/S map, and I saw the Duck's Pool box named, so off I went. My first actual stamp is of Duck's Pool. According to my book, it was not until 1987 (21 years ago) that I found Fenton's Find again. Almost 18 months after I originally found it.

As was the original way, I worked towards my 100 badge simply by looking for boxes, or, as was the practice in those days, using the extra clues at the back of the book in the box. Some books had one or more extra clues, others had none. (These are not like the current 'bonus' stamp clues sometimes found in the book, but clues to boxes in a completely different area of the moor.)

I'm still working towards that 500 badge (currently have about 330 stamps). Given that I've been a boxer for 20+ years, I guess I must be one of the slowest! Smile

John.

Moortrekkers · Drifter Joined: 29 Jan 2010 Posts: 14 Location: Somerset

I remember Fentons Find, on the ridge behind Down tor, but do you remember the Navigators Nightmare box?
What was your personal ID stamp back then?

Dave Moortrekkers.

Station Master · Hiker Joined: 27 Jan 2009 Posts: 198 Location: nr Dartmoor

You have made my day I started back in 1999 and I only have 410, over two hundred of them I have had in the last six months.

John · Hiker Joined: 18 Nov 2007 Posts: 159

John · Hiker Joined: 18 Nov 2007 Posts: 159

Moortrekkers · Drifter Joined: 29 Jan 2010 Posts: 14 Location: Somerset

This was the first box I came across where you had to do some serious compass work, accurate , over a long distance.
From a cairn upstream of Shavercombe falls there was a bearing up the hill to the left for something like 750 yards. This led to a barren area where the box was buried in the ground. We took several attempts to find. Back then we were more used to looking for a sandwich box behind some obvious stones etc the early box locations were really quite obvious to find by todays standards. I think the emphasis was more on walking and navigating to the box location.

strevaskus · Drifter Joined: 05 Jul 2010 Posts: 8 Location: Plymouth

Navigators Nightmare is still on site ,it was checked recently by a friend of mine .

Moortrekkers · Drifter Joined: 29 Jan 2010 Posts: 14 Location: Somerset

[quote="strevaskus"]Navigators Nightmare is still on site ,it was checked recently by a friend of mine .[

Blimey I cant believe its still there, it must of been between 82 and 85 when we first went there, although I can remember we didnt get it first time.

Steve did you realise this was me? DJ? look at your wall on facebook]