Our second, and final, Sylvia Sayer walk was a huge success. Offered as part of the ‘Dartmoor Calling’ project, and in collaboration with Clapham Film Unit, these two free walks have guided groups through Lady Sayer’s landscape, sharing recollections of victories and defeats in her campaigns to protect Dartmoor.

This walk began in Okehampton and took in Okehampton Camp, High Willhays – the highest point on Dartmoor, Black a Tor Copse, and Meldon Reservoir. The reservoir is known for ‘Arsenic Island’ which was built up from spoil and excess soil after construction in 1972. Water from the West Okement feeds the reservoir and fills what used to be a valley. Sylvia Sayer campaigned fiercely against the reservoir, and lamented the loss of ‘one of Dartmoor’s most splendid river valleys’ in her book, ‘The Meldon Story.’

Stories and context were provided by:

Kate Ashbrook, activist and general secretary of the Open Spaces Society, vice-chair of the Campaign for National Parks and of the Dartmoor Preservation Association, and good friend of Sylvia Sayer.

Mathew Kelly, historian and author of The Women who Saved the English Countryside (2022) and Quartz and Feldspar. Dartmoor a British Landscape for Modern Times (2015).

The walk was expertly led by Hannah of Moorland Guides Dartmoor Walks.

Read Kate Ashbrook’s reflections on Sylvia Sayer’s life and campaigning legacy, including the story of Meldon reservoir, HERE.

Kate Ashbrook