After many years living abroad, Frances Matthews returns to Belstone and climbs its tor. He finds that so much of what was once part of his childhood has remained the same
The jagged grey rocks of Belstone Tor stand above the village, cutting the smooth skyline of the moor, proud against the blue sky and scudding clouds.
When I was a five-year-old, walking up to the tor was a major expedition. Coats on, buttons done up, boots on, and then out of the house to walk up past Moor View where there were always a few kids of my age peering out of the gate as we passed. We stared at each other. By then I had to latch onto a parent’s hand to keep going as the lane got steeper. The rushing water in the ditch beside the road was always full of dead leaves so there was always an excuse to pause under the swaying trees beside the field and maybe play with the twigs damming the water.
It was always an achievement to get to the moor gate and pause before pushing through onto the short-grazed grass of the open moor; the gate swung closed with a satisfying clang as the metal hit the granite post. There were usually a few black-faced sheep grazing in the shelter of the moor wall, their coloured dye brands bright in autumn after their shearing or, if it was spring, the brands faded on the sheeps’ heavy wool fleeces dragging on the grass.
On we went, up the first grassy slope and past the army’s metal flagpole on Watchet Hill, and then we faced the final haul, following the winding sheep track up through the heather and bilberry bushes to the rocks of the tor.
There was always a dash to the top. I had my own particular route round the back of the grey granite masses, trying to be first to get up on to the highest rock and look ahead over the whole flat bowl of Taw March reaching across, surrounded by the rolling hills of the moor, and trying to spot grassy landmarks beside the winding Taw River where we might go for a picnic on another day.
Once rested, we could run about and play hide and seek in the jumble of the granite outcrops as the cold wind blew, sometimes gentle and sometimes strong. In the summer we would pick bilberries on the way back down, looking forward to some tea and a biscuit when we got home to the fire in the drawing room.
Sixty years later, my sister lives in the house, so when I go out for the walk I summon an unfamiliar dog, who looks at me uncertainly and checks me out with his nose before bounding up the familiar lane.
I pass Moor View where the family has changed and there are no children at the gate. But the lane is still steep and I am puffing, so I use the familiar excuse of checking the ditch to give myself a pause.
I get to the moor gate in ten minutes and welcome a longer pause while I look back and check the same tall beech trees still standing along the field boundaries, rich green in spring and summer, or brown in the autumn. I am glad to see they still offer shelter and nesting sites to the rooks, presumably descendants of the rooks I used to watch playing in the wind as they came into roost.
After 60 years there is a new moor gate, and it now has a different click as it self-locks when it swings back into position. But when I push through on to the open grass, I find the sheep grazing in the same way that their ancestors did when I was small, often joined by a little group of ponies sharing the same grazing. They are startled by the noise of the gate and sniff warnings to each other before they shift off, perhaps cautious of the dog. I follow the trail over the grass of Watchet and then tackle the final steep slope up to the tor which does not seem as steep as it was, but maybe my legs are longer.
When I sit on the tor nowadays, I don’t have anyone to pay hide and seek with. So, as I sit I watch the clouds rush across the sky, and I sniff the wind which still carries a hint of some rain to come. I love the scent of damp in the air after so many years away living in a dry country.
As I sit, I look at the huge expanse below, which I never bothered with when I was five and far too busy hiding in the rocks. Today I look over the dull grey slate roofs of the village to the tens of miles of rolling hills and woods of North Devon, which on a sunny day stretch as far as the small horizon smudge of Exmoor on the north coast.
I have travelled most of my life, so as I sit I take strength from the stability of the tor’s rocks. I relish sitting on the sharp granite that I used to climb over. I certainly can’t fit into the gaps and crevices where I used to hide. But I feel the rocks that I knew, and savour the trees and grass as they have been for decades, and watch the quiet sheep grazing as they have for centuries.
I glory in the hard reality of the tor. In my own life it has stayed solid as it watched me grow up, and I also know that it is the same tor that saw the Celts drive the Old People into the mists, saw the Roman legions march past on their way to conquer Cornwall, looked on as the Normans built Okehampton Castle in the valley below, and eventually watched the Victorian trains to Exeter puff their way along their new line winding round the base of the moor.
As I feel this history welling up to hold me, the wind still blows on my face and the damp still settles on my cheeks, and the sheep still determinedly graze the grass. The tor now watches a new generation of boys and girls pass through, new small legs stump up to the rocks and other grown-ups catch their breath to sit and watch, and think of tea and buns waiting by the fire.
