These pages replace those originally written in 1999 after further evidence of the quarries' history came to my attention and also further investigation at Rubble Heap and the more westerly quarries.

Phase 1, the Western Quarries

The westernmost quarries were plainly never fully worked, they are also close to where the former old Widecombe to Bovey road used to run. This will initially have provided easy access to them, before the tramway was built so this area was the likely spot where the granite for the building of Stover House and Teigngrace Church came from either from the surface clitter or the quarries.

The quarries appear to exploit a E-W ridge of rock. Much of the track to these quarries from the east has been obliterated, the track either removed or just lost under the surface. The largest dwellings are to found near the westernmost quarries just north of Saddle Tor.

In a letter to me dated 11th October 1999, Phil Newman states that he considers that this original tramway track was probably a track of some sort possibly associated with quarrying but equally likely to be from the military episode in the 1880's when troops camped between Hay Tor and Saddle Tor.

The track and quarry configuration prior to the development of the quarries in the true sense was that shown below.