North of Plymouth interesting excursions may be made to the Dewerstone, perhaps the finest bit of rock scenery on Dartmoor, or rather at its edge, where the so-called Plym bursts forth from its moorland cradle. The summit of the Dewerstone has been fortified by a double line of walls. A walk thence up the river will take a visitor into some wild country. He will pass Legis Tor with its hut circles in very fair preservation, Ditsworthy Warren, and at Drizzlecombe, coming in from the north, he will see avenues of stones and menhirs and the Giant's Grave, a large cairn, and a well-preserved kistvaen. By the stream bed below is a blowing-house with its tin moulds. Shavercombe stream comes down on the right, and there may be found traces of the slate that overlay the granite, much altered by heat. From Trowlesworthy Warren a wall, fallen, extends, in connection with numerous hut circles, as far as the Yealm. For what purpose it was erected, unless it were a tribal boundary, it is impossible to discover.
A visitor to the Dewerstone should not fail to descend through the wood to the Meavy river, and follow it down to Shaugh Bridge.
An interesting house is Old Newnham, the ancient seat of the Strode family.
Hard by is Peacock Bridge. Here a fight took place, according to tradition, between a Parker and a Strode, with their retainers, relative to a peacock, and Strode had his thumb cut off in the fray.
Buckland Monachorum also is within reach, the church converted into a mansion.
Meavy Church contains early and rude carving. Sheepstor stands above an artificial lake, the reservoir that supplies Plymouth with water. This occupies the site of an ancient lake, that had been filled with rubble brought down by the torrents from the moor.
A delightful walk may be taken by branching from the Princetown road to Nosworthy Bridge, passing under Leather Tor and following Deancombe, then ascending Combshead Tor to an interesting group of prehistoric remains, a cairn surrounded by a circle of stones, and a stone row leading to a chambered cairn. By continuing the line north-east Nun's or Siward's Cross will be reached in the midst of utter desolation. Far away east is Childe's Tomb, a kistvaen.
The story is that Childe, a hunter, lost himself on the moor. Snow came on, and he cut open his horse, and crept within the carcass to keep himself warm. But even this did not avail.
So with his finger dipp'd in blood,
He scrabbled on the stones:
"This is my will, God it fulfil,
And buried be my bones.
Whoe'er he be that findeth me,
And brings me to a grave,
The lands that now to me belong
In Plymstock he shall have."