Horndon

How the Elephant Found Its Nest

Until the early 1950s the pub in Horndon was called The New Inn, and the landlord was Charles Ossington, who weighed over twenty stone and pulled pints without getting off his stool, reaching the optics from a sitting position. A regular told him he looked like an elephant sitting on a nest. Ossington liked it enough to apply to the magistrates to change the name, and the pub has been The Elephant's Nest Inn ever since. Some Ordnance Survey maps still say The New Inn.

That is most of Horndon, in truth. It is a scatter of farms and cottages on high open ground on the western edge of Dartmoor, in the parish of Mary Tavy, four or five miles north of Tavistock. The 1894 gazetteer managed one line about it: "a village in Tavy St Mary parish, Devonshire, on the W side of Dartmoor." There is not a great deal more to add.

Horndon and Its Country Inn

The Elephant's Nest is a 16th-century country inn with thick stone walls, slate floors, open log fires, and a bar full of elephants — a mural, figures, the word spelt out in various languages. The garden was recently extended and looks out across the moor. It is one of only three pubs in Devon to have appeared in every edition of The Good Pub Guide. The kitchen does seasonal British cooking — Sunday roasts, steaks, fish pie, apple crumble — and the beer is well-kept West Country ale: Dartmoor Jail Ale, with guests from O'Hanlon's, Otter, Cotleigh and others. One caveat worth knowing before you plan an evening around it: since COVID it runs mainly as a B&B with dinner by request, rather than opening its doors daily. Ring ahead.

For anything else you go to Mary Tavy, about a mile and a half off, where the village stores and post office is said to stay open until nine at night, seven days a week, which is unusual for a place this size. The parish church, St Mary's, is Grade I listed, with a Norman piscina reset into a 14th-century nave and a pinnacled granite tower. William Crossing, who wrote the standard guide to Dartmoor, is buried in the churchyard.

Mary Tavy Essentials

The walking is why most people come. From Lane End car park, just up the road, a circular follows the River Tavy into Tavy Cleave, a steep-sided valley cut into the moor's western flank, then loops up over Ger Tor and Hare Tor. Check the Dartmoor firing programme first — the route runs into the Willsworthy range, and the Army gets priority.

Tavy Cleave and Mining Country

This is old mining country. Mary Tavy grew on copper, tin and lead, above all Wheal Friendship, the richest copper mine on Dartmoor, which employed hundreds until it closed in 1925. A mile or two up the A386 stands Wheal Betsy, a silver-lead mine whose engine house and leaning chimney are the last left standing on the moor. It was days from Army demolition in 1954 when a mining historian intervened; the National Trust has held it since 1967.

Reaching the Western Moor

The A386 carries the Dartline 118 bus between Tavistock and Okehampton. There is no station — the line closed long ago, and Plymouth is where you pick up the mainline. But you came for the moor, and the moor starts at the gate.