The first Sunday in January saw us on the moor: not walking but taking my sister and her husband on a quick tour by Land Rover along icy roads. Not quite as bad as Christmas Day afternoon, when we drove to Hound Tor past Jay’s Grave and wondered if we would get back in time to pull the crackers, but still interesting.
Permanent four wheel drive is great, until you lose it. Then, as we found a few days later, more than a ton of metal takes some stopping.
Widecombe-in-the-Moor was all but empty of visitors. The National Trust shop, in what was once the Church House, offered a temporary respite from a bitter east wind, but we had come to see the “Cathedral of the Moor” and morning service in St Pancras was not quite finished. We loitered in the cold churchyard.
It was well worth the wait. We not only got to see one of the finest churches in our part of Devon (even though Pevsner wasn’t much enthused about it) but we were met as we went in with coffee and shortbread; and the suggestion that next month we arrive earlier to help with the singing!
A cold churchyard but a very warm welcome.
Enough said: George Wilkinson's blog 