Gidleigh

Castle, church and the village

Next to Holy Trinity church stands a crumbling granite tower, which is all that is left of Gidleigh Castle. It was a small fortified manor rather than a castle in any grand sense — the solosophie travel guide calls the name "a bit of a misnomer... all that remains of the original building is a crumbling tower." The Prouz family built it and held the manor from William the Conqueror to Edward II. It is in private hands now, keeping the church company.

That is more or less the centre of Gidleigh, which is less a village than a scattering of farmsteads and cottages tucked into a wooded copse on the very edge of the High Moor. It sits on the upper River Teign, where the water is still shallow and fast. There is no shop. There is no pub. For both you go to Chagford, a stannary town about two miles off.

Two places to eat

The nearest pub is the Northmore Arms, a mile away at Wonson, over the parish boundary and roughly a twenty-minute walk from the church. CAMRA calls it "an unspoilt rustic pub with traditional values and a hospitable welcome." Dartmoor IPA and Dartmoor Jail Ale come straight from the cask, alongside two local ciders, Sam's Medium and Sam's Autumn Scrumpy. Home-cooked food is on again, though you will want to book in summer. There is a terraced garden.

At the other end of things entirely is Gidleigh Park, a Relais & Châteaux country house hotel in 107 acres on the upper Teign, with a Michelin star it held onto in 2025. The restaurant opens Tuesday to Saturday, six till nine, much of what reaches the plate grown in the hotel's own kitchen garden. Ian Webber, who trained here under Michael Caines, came back as chef in early 2025.

Stone circle and river crossings

The real reason to come is the moor above the village. A steep climb onto Gidleigh Common brings you to Scorhill Stone Circle, a Bronze Age ring 88 feet across with 34 stones remaining of an estimated 65 or 70. It is the only unrestored circle on Dartmoor and generally reckoned the finest in Devon. Wild ponies graze around it.

Below the circle a clapper bridge crosses the North Teign at Teign-e-Ver, and near it sits the Tolmen Stone, a holed rock people once crawled through for healing and fertility. The tradition survives as legend. The Kestor Rocks circular, about seven kilometres, takes in the tor, the circle and the moorland brooks, which are popular for wild swimming.

Holy Trinity and Gidleigh's past

Holy Trinity itself is granite, fifteenth-century, with an ornate rood screen repainted in red, gold and blue in 1853. The font cover was made in 1843 by the parish clerk, Charles Finch. Somewhere in the churchyard is a moss-covered, coffin-shaped tombstone carved with a Cross of Lorraine, which may mark a Crusader knight.

The Domesday surveyors valued the whole place at five shillings. It was held then by Godwin the priest. The population peaked at 180 in the mid-1800s and stood at 116 in 2001. A youth hostel ran here from 1932 to 1988.

The village today

Michael Jecks set a medieval murder here, "The Mad Monk of Gidleigh." The village hall still serves the hundred-odd people who live around the church, the ruined keep, and the sound of the young Teign going past.