Walkers on trail followed by medieval monks 'have been going wrong way'

WALKERS following Dartmoor's Abbot's Way have been on the wrong route says Torbay author Nick Pannell in a new book.

- by STAFF REPORTER

The 20-mile walk from Buckfast to Tavistock has been marked on the Ordnance Survey with a dotted line for more than 100 years and every year youth groups follow the route for an adventure challenge, not to mention hundreds of individual hikers.

Nick said: "They think they are following in the footsteps of the medieval monks who needed to cross the Dartmoor wilderness from one abbey to the other. But there is no path along the eastern section starting at Cross Furze and by starting here walkers are missing out on the real Abbot's Way's most interesting feature - a procession of medieval crosses which were erected as waymarks so the monks wouldn't get lost.