The History of Hurdwick

We’re blessed with 63 acres of woodland, grassland and gardens on the edge of Dartmoor. The back of the property looks to the Pew, Great Mis, Great Staple, Middle Staple and Cox Tors of Dartmoor and the front runs down towards the River Tamar and the border with Cornwall. Tavistock is just a mile down the road and as UNESCO world heritage town it offers an enormous amount of interest for history and culture lovers. The property has the famous Hurdwick stone quarry – which supplied the blue green stone from which the main buildings of Tavistock are made. The mine operated for hundreds of years and only closed in the early 2000’s. It was operated by my father in law before he retired and I still sell a few tonnes of Hurdwick stone a year to builders for repairs of local historic buildings of Tavistock. The Town Hall, Catholic church, Museum, Courts and several other significant buildings are made of Hurdwick stone from our quarry. When you visit you will perhaps notice the ‘ancient’ stone circle near the entrance road, I would love to tell you its thousands of years old, but it’s a recent creation of my son and myself from just a couple of summers ago (COVID did strange things to us all!). Let’s just call it our little contribution to the history of this place. The real historic structures are less obvious – the local historic register notes several medieval hedge structures and earth banks, so the land has been farmed for many hundreds of years! If you get married here, you get to be part of this history too.