Myths and Enclosure: Dartmoor
There is a legend on Dartmoor, about the spirit that inhabits Crockern Tor - Old Crockern. Back in the bad old days, during the time of drainage and enclosure, a man moved down from Manchester, intent on ‘improving’ the land, to reap huge profits. He was sure the ignorant locals were behind the times, and he could make the land productive.
As he walked out onto the land near Crockern Tor a few days later, he met a local, and got chatting. The local recounted to him a strange dream he’d had. Old Crockern, with craggy granite face and peat-pool eyes had visited him with a message for this man just arrived; “tell the man from Manchester that I know his mighty plans and that many such men have come to my land with the same intent but like them I promise him one thing, if he as much as scratches my back with a plough share, I’ll tear his pockets out”
Obviously, he ignored the warning, and ploughed the land - scratching Old Crockern’s back. But however much money, time and effort, this new farmer could not prosper, and lost all his money. Old Crockern ripped his pockets out.
This is a legend about connection to land - people living on and understanding the land. And what happens when you come without respect, without understanding, and try to turn the land into something it’s not. A cautionary tale for those that would ‘improve’ and enclose Dartmoor.
Old Crockern On Dartmoor - Photo Credit Elena Grice
Old Crockern has risen again in the fight against a new form of enclosure. In October of 2023, Alexander and Diana Darwall, who bought the 4000 acre Blachford estate on Dartmoor in 2011, decided that he didn’t want anyone spending a night under the stars on his land - despite Dartmoor being the last place that is legal to wild camp in England.
Old Crockern shook himself awake at this outrage, and took to the moors with 2000 people on a cold January day in 2023. Organised by Right to Roam and The Stars Are For Everyone, a joyful day of music and protest led by the indignant spirit of Dartmoor itself.
Old Crockern has been a symbol for the fight to access land - even to just walk and sleep on it, which Right to Roam definitively won in 2025. Despite a lengthy process of failures, wins and appeals, eventually the fight was won in the Supreme Court - Dartmoor would remain a place where we can all belong to the land in the most fundamental way. To sleep on it, under the stars, that are for everyone.