Spirit of Dartmoor? The story of Old Crockern
Who is Crockern? You might have come across mention of this mysterious figure on Dartmoor lately. Here’s my thoughts about the old Dartmoor folk tale of Old Crockern, its actual history, and its modern application.
The folk tale
Many years ago a Manchester man with plenty of money came down to Dartmoor, and declared that it was a shame so much land should lie waste; he would show what could be done with it.
The story of Old Crockern first appears in Sabine Baring-Gould’s Book of the West (1899) with no explanation or interpretation. It describes how Mr Fowler, a rich farmer, comes to terms with the Duchy of Cornwall to acquire land on the high moor close to Crockern Tor. He sets about enclosing the land and preparing to work the land with steam-threshing machines and steam-ploughs.
One day the farmer meets an old farm labourer. The worker tells him of a dream he had of Old Crockern, the old spirit of the moor,
…grey as granite, and his eyebrows hanging down over his glimmering eyes like sedge, and his eyes deep as peat water pools.
In the dream Old Crockern asks the farm worker if he knows Mr Fowler, and to tell him that if he so much as scratches Old Crockern’s back, Old Crockern will tear out his pocket.
Of course, the farmer ignores the farm worker’s dream and goes ahead anyway:
And sure enough old Crockern did it. After a few years Dartmoor beat the scientific farmer. He had tried to drain its bogs, it had drained his purse. He had scratched its back, and it had torn out his pocket.
The reality: Prince Hall Farm
This folk tale is based on real events. In 1846, George Fowler from Lancashire bought land at Prince Hall Farm near Princetown. By 1849, a reporter in the Plymouth and Devonport Weekly Journal was gushing:
Mr. Fowler will have the honour of being one of the leaders in this march of cultivation – of showing what is possible for a man alone, and unassisted to accomplish, when spurred on by talent, perseverance, and the desire of success. Now that the sum of Science is beginning to shine so brightly upon our earth, – that wealth is diffusing, and the many are no longer toiling for the few, – that industry in every art, is working such mighty miracles, – even the day when Dartmoor shall be fertilized may not be far off.
Steam ploughs were only invented around 1850 – so Fowler was using brand new technology. In 1851 a journalist in the Daily News gave details of the works:
Princehall is an enclosure of 400 acres, about 150 of which are at present in a state of high cultivation. Mr Fowler… set about improving it by draining, sub-soil ploughing, manuring and liming. Mr. Fowler has long enjoyed a high reputation for the growth of turnips, and obtained prizes for them at some of the agricultural exhibits in Devonshire…The field in which this crop was grown has been most thoroughly drained, many of the drains being from three to four feet deep, and all made of stone, of which there was an abundance on the spot…. Mr. Fowler told us that this field, prior to its cultivation, was all but worthless, producing only rushes and other kinds of aquatic plants and being covered with masses of granite rock. It is now perfectly dry, and cleared of the stone, which has been rendered useful in the erection of high and substantial fences, of which description of fencing Mr. Fowler has built no less than seven miles since he obtained possession of the estate.
There’s scant evidence of what happened next. The 1851 census lists George Fowler and his family and servants at Princehall Farm. However, by 1861 they had moved back north to Much Woolton, Lancashire.
Had Old Crockern had worked his magic and asserted his environmental limits?
T. F. Collier, at a lecture in 1880, gives an example of agricultural failure:
There was Mr. Fowler, of Liverpool, who farmed highly at Prince Hall, and left a fortune on the Moor.
William Crossing, in a posthumously-published newspaper journal of 1901, recorded that Fowler told his father:
Although he had lost a considerable amount of money at Prince Hall, he did not regret his experiments there. They had interested him for several years, and had satisfied him that operations on Dartmoor, if they were to be profitable, must be in the direction of the formation of pastures.
Sabine Baring-Gould, in his 1900 A Book of Dartmoor, chides:
Prince’s Hall was rebuilt with fine farm buildings by a Mr. Fowler from the north of England, who expended his fortune there and left a disappointed man… the fact is that Dartmoor is cut out by Nature to be a pasturage for horses, cattle and sheep in the summer months, and for that only.
An unpublished memoir of Sylvia Sayer is of interest here. Sayer’s father was a contemporary and great friend of Baring Gould, and they explored the archaeology of Dartmoor together. In describing Baring-Gould’s life, Sayer notes that in 1851:
…now at the age of 17, [Baring-Gould] was… living at Tavistock. Dartmoor was almost at his door, and… its then almost completely unrecognized antiquities attracted him irresistibly, as did the austere beauty of what was then England’s last almost unexplored wilderness. With his long legs astride a shaggy Dartmoor pony he began a quest which was to last off and on for the rest of his life…
…17-year-old Sabine would sometimes be away from home for days at a time, spending his night in remote moorland taverns, where he would sit quietly in a corner listening to the songs sung by the moormen – the old traditional folk melodies, which in years to come were to add one more to the long list of interests that filled his life.
So a young Baring-Gould was exploring Dartmoor at the same time that Fowler was ‘improving’ the land at Prince Hall. Could they have encountered one another?
Old Crockern today
There’s plenty of food for thought here, as the story of Old Crockern has been in the news recently, together with a new incarnation for its main character – the spirit of Dartmoor.
Campaigners for the right to wild camp on Dartmoor have invoked the spirit of Old Crockern for our own time, as the public’s right to wild camp (backpack camp) on Dartmoor has become threatened. There’s more information on the websites of local organisations The Stars are for Everyone, and the Dartmoor Preservation Association….. please do get involved and support this campaign in any way you can, as the Supreme Court will be hearing Darwall’s case on October 8th. Will the rich landowner, Alexander Darwall – who is trying to remove people’s right to enjoy and connect with Dartmoor through wild camping – have his pockets ripped out by Old Crockern?
If you get the time, Crockern Tor itself, the seat of the old Tinner’s Parliament at the centre of Dartmoor, is well worth a visit. If you sit in the Parliament seat on Crockern Tor, presumably as Baring Gould (and perhaps George Fowler) did all that time ago – you will find yourself looking directly at Prince Hall Farm.
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With thanks to the Dartmoor Preservation Association for access to their archive, and to Mike O’Connor for census searches.
This story was the subject of my study for MSc. in Applied Storytelling with Shonaleigh Cumbers in 2023. My heartfelt thanks to Shonaleigh for sharing a unique way of working with story through the methods of her tradition.
A version of this article was part of the ‘Magic and Myth’ exhibition at the Museum of Dartmoor Rural Life in Okehampton during 2024.
Copyright Lisa Schneidau 2024, all rights reserved.
References
Anonymous (1849). A very long-winded exposition on the benefits of Mr. Fowler’s exertions in making a success out of the former wastelands of Dartmoor. With a detailed explanation of his unique system of manure handling. Plymouth and Devonport Weekly Journal May 10, 1849.
Baring-Gould, S. (1899) A Book of the West: being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall. Meuthen & Co.
Baring-Gould, S. (1900). A Book of Dartmoor. Meuthen & Co.
Collier, W.F. (1889). The Duchy of Cornwall on Dartmoor. Read at Tavistock, August 1889.
Crossing, W. (1901). A Hundred Years on Dartmoor: historical notices of the forest and its purlieus during the nineteenth century. The Western Morning News Co. Ltd., Plymouth.
Historic England. (2022). HER report MDV25968. Field system around Prince Hall Farm, Dartmoor Forest. Via Heritage Gateway web resource, available at https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/gateway
Sayer, S. (undated) Burnards and Baring-Goulds on Dartmoor. Unpublished typed manuscript. Dartmoor Preservation Association archive, Princetown.
The National Archive (2023). 1851 and 1861 census. Available online at https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/