Mary Tavy

Wheal Betsy and the Village Setting

The engine house of Wheal Betsy stands on the open moor beside the A386, its chimney leaning at an angle that has clearly worried someone. It is the last engine house left standing on Dartmoor. The National Trust took it on in 1967 and secured the stack, so the lean is now permanent rather than getting worse. It once worked lead, silver, copper, arsenic and zinc, which is a lot of different things to pull out of one hillside.

Mary Tavy is strung out along the A386, four miles north of Tavistock, on the western edge of Dartmoor. The older part of the village clusters along a lane beside Cholwell Brook, with a bridleway and footbridge dropping down through woods toward the River Tavy.

Pubs and Village Provisions

The pub is the Mary Tavy Inn, at a junction called Lane Head where a smithy once stood and the post-boys carrying the King's mail used to stop. It was built in the 1600s, believed to have started as three cottages, and has since worked its way through two other names — the Elliott Hotel and then the Buller's Arms, after the family who owned most of the land here until 1891. The kitchen does home-cooked British food and a Sunday roast, £18.95 for two meats with Yorkshire pudding and a choice of vegetables. One Tripadvisor reviewer summed the roast up as "nothing fancy, just like a nice homemade cooked meal which was very tasty," which is the sort of review a kitchen should probably be pleased with. The pub area and beer garden are dog friendly, and it won a Travellers' Choice award in 2024.

The village's other pub, the Elephant's Nest at nearby Horndon, has not reopened for drinking since 2020, though the B&B carries on. It was long known for keeping four real ales on at all times — two Palmer's, Jail Ale from Princetown, and a rotating guest — plus scrumpy on draught. Worth knowing, if only so you don't drive out expecting a pint.

Walking the Western Moor

For everything else there's the Village Post Office and Stores on the A386.

The walking is the real reason to be here. From Lanehead car park above the village, a circular follows the River Tavy into Tavy Cleave, a steep-sided valley cut into the western moor, then climbs onto Ger Tor and Hare Tor. Part of it sits inside the Willsworthy firing range, so check the firing times before you set off. Gentler options include Stage 4 of the West Devon Way, roughly four miles down to Tavistock.

St Mary's and William Crossing

St Mary's church, Grade I listed, has a granite pinnacled tower and a font that may be medieval, recut in the nineteenth century. William Crossing, who wrote the definitive guide to Dartmoor in 1909 and lived part of his life in the village, is buried in the churchyard beside his wife — top of the churchyard, turn left.

Mining History in a Phone Box

At the top of Bal Lane there is a red K6 telephone box that no longer takes calls. It has been converted into a museum of the village's mining past, which is roughly the size you'd expect a phone box to be.