Qualla: Wistman's Wood https://qualla.com/wistman-s-wood en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:11 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/p/wistman-s-wood-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Wistman's Wood https://qualla.com/wistman-s-wood Wistman's Wood: Introduction https://qualla.com/wistman-s-wood/ Photo credit Martin Bodman, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Devonshire word for what comes off this wood is wisht. It means eerie. It means uncanny. It means pixie-haunted. The Wild Hunt of West Country folklore - a spectral chase of black hounds led by the Devil across the moor - is supposed to start from this 3.5-hectare grove of stunted oaks high in the valley of the West Dart River. The hounds are called Yeth Hounds, or Wisht Hounds, and the wood takes its name from them. Walk into it on a misty morning and the lichens hanging in foot-long rags from every branch, the boulders the size of cars heaped under the canopy, the green light filtered through twisted limbs that have never reached more than about fifteen feet off the ground - all of it produces an effect that a single word in the local dialect once captured precisely.

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Image: Martin Bodman | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/p/wistman-s-wood-wp/gbvp-wistmans-wood-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Wistman's Wood: A Rainforest 380 Meters Up https://qualla.com/wistman-s-wood/ Photo credit Myself - Herby talk thyme, CC BY-SA 4.0. Wistman's Wood is one of the highest oakwoods in Britain and one of the last fragments of true temperate rainforest left in the country. It sits at about 380 to 435 meters above sea level near Two Bridges in the centre of Dartmoor, in a steep cleave above the West Dart River. The...

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Image: Myself - Herby talk thyme | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/p/wistman-s-wood-wp/gbvp-wistmans-wood-a-rainforest-380-meters-up.mp3 0:06 2 full Wistman's Wood: Lichens, Adders, and the Boulder Floor https://qualla.com/wistman-s-wood/ Photo credit Totnesmartin, Public domain. What sets Wistman's apart from any other patch of Dartmoor oakwood is the floor and what grows on the branches. The ground beneath the canopy is a chaos of granite clitter - blocks of stone the size of small cars, dropped here by frost-weathering across thousands of years - and t...

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Image: Totnesmartin | Public domain

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/p/wistman-s-wood-wp/gbvp-wistmans-wood-lichens-adders-and-the-boulder-floor.mp3 0:06 3 full Wistman's Wood: The Buller Stone and the Felled Oak https://qualla.com/wistman-s-wood/ Photo credit Derek Harper, CC BY-SA 2.0. How old are the oldest trees actually was a question that exercised 19th-century naturalists. In 1866 a man named Wentworth Buller obtained permission from the Duchy of Cornwall to settle the question by simply cutting down one of the oldest oaks and counting its rings. The tree ...

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Image: Derek Harper | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/p/wistman-s-wood-wp/gbvp-wistmans-wood-the-buller-stone-and-the-felled-oak.mp3 0:06 4 full Wistman's Wood: Protected, and Expanding https://qualla.com/wistman-s-wood/ Photo credit Don Coldwell, CC BY-SA 2.0. Wistman's Wood was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1964, an early recognition of its value. It is also a National Nature Reserve, a Nature Conservation Review site, and one of the primary reasons for the Dartmoor Special Area of Conservation designation. The w...

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Image: Don Coldwell | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/p/wistman-s-wood-wp/gbvp-wistmans-wood-protected-and-expanding.mp3 0:06 5 full Wistman's Wood: The Wisht Hounds https://qualla.com/wistman-s-wood/ Photo credit Miles from Devon, England, CC BY 2.0. The folklore attached to the place is older than the conservation status and probably older than any of the living trees. The name comes from the Devonshire dialect word wisht. In its older form the word carried both meanings - eerie, uncanny - and pixie-led, haunted. The Wild Hu...

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Image: Miles from Devon, England | CC BY 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/p/wistman-s-wood-wp/gbvp-wistmans-wood-the-wisht-hounds.mp3 0:06 6 full