The Treacherous Mire

Dartmoor is like a sponge - it has the ability within its fabric to absorb and hold huge amounts of water whether from underground streams and springs or the infamous bogs and mires. Here at Holwell we have one of the largest mires on Dartmoor. A rare habitat for flora and fauna including Snipe, Curlew, Red Deer, Frittilery Butterfly and a wide selection of mosses. The spagnuym moss which is most common was used during the First World War as a wound dressing because of it's healing and absorbtion properties.

Mysterious and trecherous, it has the ability to lure in unsuspecting animals and humans who are quickly lulled into a false sense of security by its tussocky hillocks which can be used like "stepping stones" to cross it. Beware, however, you only have to put one foot wrong and you can go down into it like a boulder. Legend has it that there are at least 2 carts complete with horses and drivers down in the Emsworthy Mire. Yesterday, there was very nearly another name to add; that of Sebastian Hughes and his Basset Batty Two.

Batty One met with an untimely exit when she was flattened by a cow last Autumn, and yesterday it was Batty Two who had nearly disappeared without trace. Together with her sister and brother, the terrible trio are regularly to be seen skipping across the mire towards The Rock Inn at Hay Tor for "Happy Hour" being returned later only when they have run out of money!

Yesterday evening only Batty's sister and brother returned, caked in mire mud and looking a bit sheepish with it.

By nightfall there was no sign of Batty Two, so an expedition was launched and it wasn't long before her plaintif howls could be heard coming from the direction of the mire. Eventually located with just her head out of the mud, she was carfully hauled out to safety.

Unfortunately, the suction of the mire was so strong that she has suffered what is now likely to be ireperable damage to her tail and hind leg. Still at the vet's making slow progress as this blog is written, so fingers crossed we can get her back home soon.

It would be comforting to think that after such a "close shave" this is not something she will be in a hurry to repeat, but as other Basset owner's will sympathise; Basset's are bears of very little brain !

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