Scorriton

From the inn door to open moor

You can walk out of the front door of the Tradesman's Arms and straight onto open moor. The pub sits at the end of the Ivybridge-to-Scorriton stretch of the Two Moors Way, which sounds like marketing until you find there is genuinely nothing between the doorstep and the moor but a gate.

The Tradesman's Arms is most of what Scorriton has. The village is roughly a dozen stone cottages, four local-authority houses, a central farm and the inn, arranged on the southern edge of Dartmoor about a mile below Holne. The Holy Brook runs past to the north. There is no shop and no church. The population is 293, and that counts Combe and the wider parish too.

Two centuries of pub life

The pub dates back around 200 years. For much of that time it was run by wheelwrights, and it stood opposite a forge where blacksmiths fitted iron tyres onto cartwheels. In 2008 it faced closure, and four regulars bought the property and reopened it. It is still open and thriving. Kevin and Suzanne — Suzi — have hosted for the past seven years, with four B&B rooms upstairs.

The food is home-cooked and the portions are generous. Reviewers point to the Sunday roast, which comes as both beef and pork, the homemade pies, and fish and chips. For pudding there are homemade brownies and sticky toffee pudding with clotted cream. There is a Curry Night, a Pie Night, and a Quiz Night on Thursdays at nine, which costs a pound a head for charity.

Walking beyond Scorriton

The garden overlooks the Little Combe Valley, and inside there is a wood-burning stove and a conservatory. The beer is taken seriously — real ales, local cider, and a place in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide. Dogs are welcome, on the pub's own terms: "Dogs are more than welcome at The Tradesmans Arms – as long as the well-behaved owners are securely attached to their lead!"

Walking is the main reason to be here. Besides the Two Moors Way, there's a four-mile circular that runs through Whitey Cross, Higher Combe and Chalk Ford, crossing the River Mardle and Snowdon Brook and climbing to views back toward Holne. Scorriton Down carries a stone circle and open access onto Buckfastleigh Moor. The Church House Inn at Holne is a mile off if you want a second pub on the route.

The Scorriton Mystery

The nearest church, St Mary the Virgin at Holne, is Grade I listed and dates to around 1300. Charles Kingsley, who wrote The Water-Babies, was born in the vicarage there in 1819.

The village's most famous story is stranger. On 24 April 1965 a local man, Arthur Bryant, said a flying saucer landed nearby and three beings, one calling himself Yamski, beckoned him aboard. It drew national attention and is now generally treated as a probable hoax, which has not stopped it being the thing Scorriton is known for.

A country show with one r

Each August Bank Holiday Monday, the Scoriton Country Show fills a field on the edge of the village, as it has since 1949 — welly wanging, hay-bale tossing, plate smashing, bash the rat, and a ceilidh in the evening. The show spells the village with one 'r'. So does the parish council, and so did the flying saucer. Nobody local seems bothered either way.