Walking The Ancient Road of The Dead With Tony Robinson | Ancient Tracks | Timeline

[Music] [Music] Britain is crisscrossed by an amazing network of each and trackways these remarkable routes are our oldest roads and have been traveled for more than five thousand years he's quite small he's small boy he's mighty small but mighty however have walked by Pilgrims and traders hunters and invaders Celts and Roman Saxons and Vikings each track is bound up in myth mystery and legend of all the archaeological finds I've come across when I heard about it my jaw actually dropped I'm on a quest to connect the clues and rediscover the stories hidden among Britain's ancient pathways I want to find out what it is that tempts today's travelers to go back in time and rediscover these mystic tracks do you reckon that's the North Star and on the brighter side this guy but it's what we want the most useful sprint lively smell a letter you can still smell it nineteen hundred year old leather isn't it absolutely amazing this week I've come to Dartmoor endeavored to walk the ancient routes that connect Christianity and paganism through centuries-old stories of sacred sites extraordinary stones and literature's most notorious hound these are the paths our ancestors once followed the ancient tracks that we in Britain can still walk today [Music] Dartmoor has been described as England's last great wilderness it covers an area of some 370 square miles [Music] mankind has lived on Dartmoor since the Stone Age and over time has left an indelible mark on this exposed landscape I've been to Dartmoor loads of times and whenever I come I hear some new weird and wonderful story about the place that really raises the hairs on the back of my neck but I've never walked across the whole more I don't really know how the whole thing fits together I do know that this is going to be a journey through time I'm going to hear lots of tales from different periods and I've brought my own timepiece with me as my companion although exactly why you won't know till the end of the program across Dartmoor is a network of ancient trackways shrouded in history and mystery I'll be following a procession of medieval stone crosses along the abbot's way before heading in search of consecrated ground along the old Lynch way a way of the Dead along my journey I'll retrace the footsteps of Britain's greatest detective plunged the depths of a bottomless lake and come face-to-face with a fantastical array of four-legged beasts [Music] and with a little detective work of my own I hope to unravel the time-worn secrets the remain deep-rooted in this vast untamed terrain my journey begins at buckfast Abbey on the edge of darkness for many centuries people have been drawn to this sacred site in search of the divine buckfast Abbey was mentioned in the 11th century Doomsday Book and in 2018 will be one thousand years old its fortunes of ebbs and flowed through the years from wielding great power over medieval pagan societies to it's devastating 16th century demise after Henry the eighth's dissolution of the monasteries then in 1852 French monks who had been exiled from their own monastery came here to what was then a deserted ruined and flattened ancient monastic site and after a lot of hard work and inspiration they created this moorland sanctuary cultivating this abandoned land was essential today's monks are equally self-sustaining religion it seems has prospered here by harnessing the natural world [Music] atchoo aliy replenished the advert has offered to show me the first of the crosses that will guide me across the wilderness ahead is this the original position of this cross no no no no it was bought from South Brent so what was the significance of putting it right here well because traditionally the abbot's way starts at buckfast and goes on to cross the water Tavistock and so this is really the starting point so this has become the first mark estonian become the first marker stone yes yes if you don't hear from me in a week then the dog will rescue after you god bless bye bye I have another guide to enlighten my journey there's a little book from about 1935 which gives a really nice picture of what it would have been like traveling along this road is called the Abbott's way was priced at six months and it says for several hundred years this star affair witnessed colorful pageantry of medieval life it goes on to lament that fragments alone remain today it's a funny word that fragments isn't it but it's true nowadays all you've get are these tiny little hints of what life would have been like here and it's up to us to use that detective work to pull them back together [Music] on four shift health in Goderich is really rather bizarre walking down a track way in the 21st century and coming across a bloke singing and medieval song this is something I do a lot I think it's a great way of connecting with the land I mean we're in a land where well this is called the Abbott's way now and monks and Abbott's would have walked it in the past and we know that it existed a thousand years ago and this song I'm singing is the oldest song we know of it's written with with the music and the words so we can be pretty sure that some monks with a song this song maybe even on this path should we walk away together yeah do we know much about the actual bloke who wrote that song you're singing called gods with a fin tail fin child [Music] with my pilgrim for company I followed the abbot's way to where it splits into two one going to Buckland Abbey and the other to Tavistock and it's at this junction where I find the largest and oldest of Darkness stone crosses do we know what this cross is well it's called nuns cross or Seward's cross and we definitely know that it was here in 1240 because King Henry the third sent twelve of his knights to perambulate that the Dartmoor boundaries and we know they visited this cross this is real history isn't it it is as is the song I sang earlier which is we know will have been definitely sung at a time this crosses around because that was written in 1160 just before this we have record of this cross so it's a great joy to be able to sing it here and connect the two yeah you serenade [Music] [Applause] [Music] my singing pilgrim makes me think of the first of dark moors many cautionary folktales as the moor rises gently to a high ridge and climbing one of three hills here this one known as Piper's Hill [Music] way over there can you see that mound of stones that's on top of the second one the third one is that little one there with the tree there and these mounds are supposed to be Piper's who are frozen for all eternity as a punishment and what did they do wrong they played their musical instruments on the Sabbath and that is a typical dartmoor story that conjunction of the pagan and Christianity I wonder what the the very first version of that story was if only these stones could talk pipe I should probably station every step I make now across this magnificently bleak and stony expanse takes me back in time back way beyond the struggle between church and paganism and back into another glorious Dartmoor mystery I've got something for you here look slap-bang in the middle of a deserted more you've got this great name the drizzle come bone it's four meters tall it's about six tons in weight and really it kind of asks you more questions than it gives answers doesn't it what period is it well it's surrounded by prehistoric stuff so presumably it's late Neolithic early Bronze Age it's got this big not only thing at the top of it which presumably gives it its name but most importantly what's it for is it some kind of way marker is it the place where people met like an affair or something or is it like Stonehenge part of some enormous prehistoric clock which reminds me time to move on these ancient places are a wonderful spot for the travelers imagination each one a piece in darkness Rand complex jigsaw puzzle bidding the bone goodbye and with barely another soul in sight the mind tends to drift off two stories of the supernatural and of dare I say it apparitions and there's one particular apparition that crops up all over the high moorland and Devon and Cornwall the pixie in the old days if the traveller lost their way and got really confused they were sometimes referred to as being pixie led but I'm a seasoned traveler I know how to handle them Pixies by using a very ancient trick if I put my coat on inside out it'll so confused them that off my back and I'll be able to stick to the right track [Applause] every year the nearby town of uh Therese Mary is invaded by hordes of local children dressed as impish elves to mark pixie day [Music] legend has it these Pixies were caught trying to silence the town's church bells and banished to a nearby cave I think these Pixies are a force to be reckoned with I'd better find their cave and pay my respects [Music] oh yeah there it is look you see in there now I'm told that if I want to ensure that I get down safe then I have to leave some silver here's two half-crowns two and six five Bob I should keep me safe on the journey back down again should net Pixies and the paranormal held a particular fascination for the creator of Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the legendary writer was taken in by phony photographs of fairies believing these celestial creatures to be real but lurking on the moor ready to inspire Conan Doyle's most famous novel was the legend of a very different apparition not as charming as those Pixies though because here on Dartmoor this came the inspiration for the most spine-tingling tale in the whole of detective fiction Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles the ancient Abbott's way across Dartmoor is a landscape steeped in centuries-old myths and legends and a location that inspired one of our most iconic literary masterpieces the Hound of the Baskervilles Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's love letter to Dartmoor and all its mysteries they reckon that when he came here in 1901 to recce the place he used to walk up to 18 miles a day in order to find suitable locations for his terrible tale the plot of this complex murder mystery attributes the sudden death of the wealthy Sir Charles Baskerville to a family curse involving a supernatural hound Dartmoor had provided the inspiration cast and backdrop for this beastly apparition and the Hound of the Baskervilles also marks the resurrection of the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes Conan Doyle had killed off Holmes eight years earlier but the celebrated sleuth simply couldn't be left out of such a ripping yarn the inspiration for the Hound of the Baskervilles most blood-curdling scene is just a short walk off the Abbott's way in dark moors most dangerous and form [Music] Sherlock Holmes himself said that Dartmoor would be the perfect setting if the devil ever did really want to get his hands on the affairs of men and there's this wonderful bit at the end of the book where the arch villain John Stapleton is actually killed by the the bog in the center of Dartmoor it says somewhere in the heart of the great Grimpen mire that's actually here down in the slime of the huge morass which had sucked him in this cold and cruel hearted man is forever buried right down there for pilgrim travelers straying from the safety of the path and onto this wild untamed bog was fraught with danger just as deviating from the Christian to the occult was seen by many as a step too far but remarkably it was this very path that Conan Doyle himself chose to travel I'm intrigued to find why the writer was so fascinated with Victorian spiritualism [Music] and so bizarre isn't it on one hand you've got this kind of man who invents fictional CSI and yet on the other hand he was prepared to countenance stuff which nowadays we would think of as weird and a bit daft it does seem like a contradiction to is no and I think we very much parcel these apart but in the 19th century believers thought that they had discovered a scientific religion and he said I believe it because I've seen it if I have to go back to believing in things that I haven't seen I might as well go back to the old religions when I talk on this subject I'm not talking about my belief I'm not talking about what I think I'm talking about what I know and talking about things they're handled I've seen that I heard with my own ears it's kind of crude empiricism right they thought that they were rejecting the old ideas that you had to believe in the basis of faith and now you could sit at your kitchen table and you could experiment you could rap you could be with a medium and you knew that there was an afterlife because you could see and touch and talk to the dead is there anything in Hound of the Baskervilles that reflects his belief in spiritualism well that's quite a spiritual story in many ways the Hound of Baskerville is very very clearly an attack on this old-fashioned idea of Hell telecoms jokes about in this investigation he might be up against the devil what the story does that disprove the existence of the supernatural hellish beast but it opens the door for other more modern understandings of supernatural phenomena it's hot isn't it that he should set this story in the theatre of Dartmoor which on one hand seems to me almost to epitomize the very early Christian religion and yet on the other hand it keeps spinning off into weird and pagan beliefs almost everywhere you look yeah this place where the primitive is always with us and it's important I think that you get a sense that the the ancient beliefs of the Neolithic people maybe are not too dissemblers from from of the spirit beliefs he's arguing for elsewhere whatever Conan Doyle is obsessions the Hound of the Baskervilles is a wonderfully potent story so potent in fact I feel the creatures brooding presence everywhere I look [Music] wait a minute and here he comes Stan during towards me it's not of the Baskervilles and she gorgeous no not gorgeous absolutely terrifying now one of these their hats it the lovely Hound of the Baskervilles come on come and show yourself let's have a look at you look at that oh and very slippery to the slobbery the best [Music] I promised you four-legged creatures on my wander through this formidable terrain but none say Dartmoor more than these iconic ponies running untethered across the Moors I truly feel I'm intruding on their turf a visitor on their land but what I want to know is how far back these beautiful creatures have adorned the wild Dartmoor landscape [Music] well not all the animals on Dartmoor are quite as threatening as the Hound of the Baskervilles oh well not all except George when he's hungry these are Dartmoor ponies and they renowned for their fantastic temperament being children's riding ponies but of course they have a long history connected to Dartmoor I suppose in the old days they would have been working on horses wouldn't they yeah I mean if you go right the way back through history they were used in tin mining you know this is the the old-fashioned quad bike isn't it yeah you know this is this is the proper quad bike Suso wants to walk on but there is one question that I want to ask don't be impatient before we go which is do we know that there were little ponies on Dartmoor a long time ago like in the Bronze Age what we do isn't that amazing prehistory and we have proof because in the 1970s there was a archaeological dig carried out on shore more on the other side of Dartmoor and from seed samples that were taken they actually found some hoof prints and they were similar size to a Dartmoor ponies feet so yes we had cattle sheep and ponies on Dartmoor three-and-a-half thousand years ago we've got the answer to the question now do you want to walk on killing them [Music] back on the abbot's way to sheeps to church and i'm keeping my ears peeled for a group of bell ringers who can help me figure out the baffling tale of nearby crazy whirlpool you see Dan Moore has no natural lakes so I think getting to the bottom of this aquatic conundrum might not be as easy as it seems [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello Katie good morning how long have you been associated with the bells in this church seventy years and were you the first of your family no father and grandfather both wrong in this church so what's the link between the bells on the pool there's a lot of history and maybe some legend attached to crazy whirlpool parishioners wanted to know what depth that was grandfather said they had six Bell groups from this chore to try and measure the depth but it ended in failure so it was even deeper than six ropes tied together yes it is mysterious isn't it there was a lot of mystery attached to it [Music] the site of this bottomless dark water Lagoon is marked by its namesake crazy world cross this lake is so well hidden that when it's approached from the open piece it only reveals itself the last mode there it is imagine a long bell rope dropping into that at a hundred feet 200 feet 300 feet they still haven't got to the bottom 360 they've run out of rope and still it goes down and down infinitely deep [Music] the water board say it's a two tin mine and it's actually 16 feet deep the locals say that's rubbish the water board never measured it or if they did they didn't do their job properly but what it proves indisputably is that in a landscape like this you can believe anything you like even things which aren't possible at least not in the material world [Music] the hound The Pixies the occult leanings of Conan Doyle have certainly encountered more than my fair share of Dartmoor superstitions but even greater mysteries lie along the abbot's way up ahead I'll become spellbound by an ancient witch and find out who won the battle between a vicar and a savage beast [Music] [Music] a land of sweeping views and enduring legends and as I follow the primitive tracks across this epic landscape I'm continually drawn back in time by Zilla rating vistas that fuel the imagination then suddenly appearing like a mirage and floated by the sight of something actually very real somewhere we're serving time comes with the territory surrounded by unrelenting wilderness you could call it Britain's Alcatraz and I for one am more than happy to keep my distance [Music] it's not much doubt what that is Dartmoor the most infamous prison in the whole of Britain imagine even if you may to get over those perimeter fences what would you see in front of your freedom no just mile after mile of bog land wherever you went you would be able to be seen how much chance of escape no wonder today that single word Dartmoor is still the epitome of bloomin terror prisoners time must've moved very slowly for me the constant tick-tick-ticking tells me it's time I traveled on well traveled back I should say back in time beyond recorded history back thousands of years in fact this is Maryvale one of dard most significant Bronze Age settlements maybe I'm a bit weird but this kind of thing in the landscape gets me really excited can you see that there's this long row of stones and it goes look it's got to be 200 meters in that direction but it's not just one row look there's a row here and there's a row behind it incredibly impressive huge amount of work and if that wasn't enough look you've got exactly the same here the twin rows of stones absolutely parallel to the first row and thirdly we've got some bloke who appears to be committing what looks like the worst archaeological crime imaginable is that a sander it's not a sander it's a scanner scanner yeah what it's looking for it's a microscope microchip with hidden on this state yeah no unfortunately these stones are on the fret of our granite artifact especially ones in accessible locations from fact so it's try and combat that we put microchips within the stones so if they do get stolen we'd be able to hopefully track them down so you put a chip like you would in case you've got dog got exactly the same technology it's the same type of microchip okay it's ridiculous why would people Nick these they're thousands of years old they're irreplaceable it's just so brutally stupid isn't it yeah well what do you think they originally were I think these monuments are very complex they're associated with the landscape views they're setting in the landscape as well in the burial mounds just behind us we've got a stone circle and other cans in this area I think we've got a kind of a approach market and that evil Church it could have been a processional way up to venerate the ancestors and they can or it could have been venerating a landscape it could have been a territorial marker so many different uses probably occurred these monuments so in an odd way not that far removed from all the Christian crosses that I've seen mmm I'm not going to say anything else I just think this place is so wonderful I'm just gonna wander around have a look at it okay whatever the reasons behind these stone rows archaeologists believe a prehistoric community thrived in Maryvale in what would have been a much warmer climate it's difficult to imagine now but this moorland was once abundant with luscious forests and animal prey [Music] today's terrain is relentless I have to pick my way carefully through the stones to keep my feet dry almost Darla's endless capacity to surprise though is about to offer up another arresting spectacle I've just come off my path a bit there's the abbot's way going all along the top of those hills there and suddenly it's boggy morass and I'm soaking wet almost up to my knees now but the reason I came here was I can't go any further than this but I wanted to show you that that little tour thing is called the Sphinx namesake this remarkable rocky formation attracted Victorian travelers keen to see and as this Victorian picture shows photograph the Sphinx for themselves but Liz you don't call it the Sphinx see I certainly don't know that's known as vixen tall I think the Sphinx is a relatively modern name it's been known as a vixen tour for hundreds hundreds thousands of years who was the vixen well the vixen that is the notorious witch of vixen tool called Lick sauna fan of the week what did she do she had a liking for travelers who were walking across the path that you were we were on the abbot's way what do you mean the box I've just been through yep that one the very same so she had a method of conjuring up a mist and luring unwary travelers into her Bob when she caught sight of them she would clap her hands and cackle with delight and pull down the mist so the traveler was suddenly enveloped in this swirling mysterious mist became scared and before they knew it they were sinking deeper and deeper and deeper into the myah and she'd leap off the tour flyover on her broomstick where the fingers of the traveler were just be seen sinking into the bog before they they disappeared she'd snap them off one by one snap snap snap snap and suck out the inside for running back up to the tour it's a great story I could listen to that all day there's another thing about this environment that really impresses me and that's the sense of time here you go if you've been walking for a couple of hours but actually you've got no idea how long you've been walking do you find that oh absolutely time disappears I I think it's one of the other magics of them all time stands still it has no meaning well unfortunately time does still have meaning for me I've got to get on anyway very nice to talk to you if you hear a scream in the next quarter an hour you'll know what's happened thanks a lot sounds like a right horror story [Music] almost on the outskirts of Tavistock now if our a medieval pilgrim I think I'd be ready for another sign that I'm on the right path standing steadfast among the golfers the 7-foot high Pixies cross may well provide spiritual guidance for players praying for a good shot it certainly is a miracle that the cross has withstood the march of time to stay on course [Music] pilgrims and monks used the cross to point the way to town stop happy and escaped prisoners from Princetown were whipped at the cross as punishment in some ways though it's incredible that these crosses still exist at all with dramatic tales of total upheaval during the Reformation the one that intrigues me most took place in the 16th century when Henry the eighth's got rid of all the monks and dissolved all the monasteries and imposed a set of much more Puritan vicars in their place and the village of walk Hampton got this particularly zealous vicar who was absolutely determined to get rid of every last religious icon every crucifix every statue of a saint every cross in his entire parish [Music] when he found out about the Pixies cross he instructed his parishioners to destroy the offending granite emblem however with no volunteers forthcoming you took the tools and the tasks into his own hands so he's all on his own attempting to hack away the old cross when suddenly he hears this roaring noise and he looks down and there is a big black bull staring him right in the eyes with dribble coming out of its mouth and pouring the ground with its hoof and he clearly wants the vicar to get out of the way but the vicar isn't backing down and the vicar stares at the bull and the bull stares at the vicar and the vicar stares at the bull and the ball stares at the vicar and eventually it's night and neither of them are going to back down and eventually next morning all the villages and gathered round and there's still this standoff until finally they managed to extract a promise from the vicar that he won't destroy the cross and they lead the bull away while the story of the bull of the parson maybe just another of dard mores many legends it does hint at a deeper meaning something about nature versus religious obsession though in this case it was bullish persistence that ultimately saved this ancient cross my walk across Dartmoor may not yet be complete but the final ticking of the clock is looming as I follow the old lich weh-weh [Music] you [Music] having laid the abbot's way to rest I'm now in the wake of the dead on the altogether momma carp old lynch way this way of the dead was the final journey for Christians who died on this Moor their religion meant that no matter where they passed away their body had to be laid to rest in consecrated or sacred ground which is an old English word for corpse and a lich way was a path that they used to carry the corpses along on their way to get buried and lychgate was the little gate in the side of a church that the corpse came through and a lich al was another word for a screech owl because people used to think that the noise it made was an omen of death they'll lift me up and lay me down [Music] gently down - Irish consecrated folk singer Steve Knightley who weaves diss paths rather mournful undertaking into beautifully evocative verse some called the old rich way which sounds great when you sing it in a church for a cathedral and but it's it's sort of like Old English and there's a piece of almost Latin flame song in it yeah it mentions the places along the route where people would stop just to rest you could imagine carrying a corpse twelve miles is a pretty exhausting task but it isn't actually an ancient song no it's not an ancient song but it's very much in that style you know it's very much in that sort of timeless folk style if you like you know this area really confuses me because on one hand you know looking out here it's just burgeoning with life isn't it all the flowers coming out the leaves looking so intensely green and yet this is actually a way of death you imagine what it's like in midwinter here when you're carrying your nearest and dearest 12 miles lit furred is that way to the to the west it would have been the most extraordinary I mean that could be a tragic way of of taking your loved ones to be buried so lit furred uphill yeah all the way see you but will uphill good luck me down [Music] gently down - lies consecrated ground [Music] like seeds these local actors have also been inspired by the old rich way as they recreate the dramatic procession of the deceased to a Christian burial and the next life they too are reconnecting with the past as they negotiate the same primitive clapper bridges that once conveyed dark moors dead the dart again [Music] it's compelling to think of the urban flow of generations of human settlement in a place so enduring as Dartmoor the Moors and woods bearing witness down the millennia and none more so magical and primeval whisperings work [Music] the name tartan Dartmoor is said to derive from Derwent the ancient name for oak trees it's here I had my first meeting with a member of the order of bards Ovid's and Druids by the sound of it a man in perfect harmony with nature [Music] and he that music is so appropriate for this wood isn't it yeah it's perfect isn't it just the kind of soundtrack to a landscape like this and this is what Dartmoor would have looked like before it was a moor absolutely this is one of the the last remaining pockets of ancient woodland on Dartmoor and yeah once the whole of Dartmoor would have been forests like this so really when we look out over the boiled expanse of Dartmoor we're looking at the ruins of an ancient Wildwood are there any particular stories or folktales that tie in this area with joints or tourism we know from Roman sources that the Druids worshiped in sacred groves and here we are in a sacred grove and this would have been a bit of woodland in the Iron Age so who knows maybe maybe there would have been druids performing their rites here on a full moon well certainly on an evening like this it feels as though they're still here yeah yeah you too safe travels right enjoy your pilgrimage thank you time is almost at an end as my path along the old rich way reaches the Church of some pet rocks I've been a time traveler in Dartmoor discovering an ancient story where Pixies and prisoners share its pages with standing stones and Sherlock Holmes and here we are the final resting place on this historic path along my journey through time to a place where time itself is written in stone [Music] I've come into this church which is pretty beautiful anyway isn't it because I'm looking for a particular gravestone it was a guy called George roughtly I think it's just here he died round about the beginning of the 19th century and I don't think you'll be very surprised to hear from his epitaph that he was a watchmaker he departed this life November the 14th 1802 wound up in hopes of being taken in hand by his maker and of being thoroughly cleaned repaired set going [Music] what a creative way to end your days from someone whose craft marked the very essence of life and on that timely note my pilgrimage has come to an end well I finally achieved my ambition I've walked all the way across Dartmoor and I think it's quite appropriate that I should have finished talking about a watchmaker because in many ways Dartmoor is frozen in time isn't it with little flashbacks in stone and in words we've had literary stories old wives tales tales in song tales about the moor itself it is an extraordinary landscape and personally what I like most about it is the fact that even in the second decade of the 21st century it's still pretty much untamed [Music]

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 145,139

Rating: 4.8833861 out of 5

Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, tony robinson, ancient tracks, british geography, hill walking, nature documentary, walking through history, walking through history with tony robinson

Id: E1kYSjyuCd0

Length: 46min 18sec (2778 seconds)

Published: Sat May 02 2020