Ilsington

Like so many Dartmoor communities, Ilsington was once an important centre of the wool industry. At the heart of the village is a characteristic trio of late medieval buildings – church, church house and inn. The interior of St Michael’s Church is well worth seeing, with its impressive array of arched beams and roof timbers, which seem to hang in mid-air above the nave. The medieval pew ends are thought to be the only ones in Devon carved with the distinctive poppy head design; there’s also a mid 14th-century effigy of a woman and an elaborately carved 16th-century rood screen.

Entry to the churchyard is by way of an unusual lych gate with an upper storey, which once served as the village schoolroom. The present structure is actually a replica of the original medieval gate that apparently collapsed when someone slammed the gate too energetically. The nearby church house, dating back to the 1500s, is now sub-divided into residential dwellings known as St Michael’s Cottages.

This small village was the birthplace of the Jacobean dramatist John Ford (1586-1639) whose most successful play, Tis Pity She’s A Whore (1633), is still occasionally revived.

Ilsington is a sizeable parish and includes the three wellknown tors of Rippon, Saddle and Haytor Rocks. The latter is perhaps the most dramatic, especially when approached from the west along the B3387, and with a height of almost 1500 feet provides a popular challenge for rock climbers.

In the early 1800s, the shallow valley to the north of Haytor Rocks was riddled with quarries that supplied granite for such famous buildings as London Bridge, the National Gallery and the British Museum.