The Lych Way | Dartmoor's Ancient Path of the Dead

Añadido: 2026-05-20

[00:00:02]I'm walking a path across Dartmore that only exists because people once carried the dead along it. For centuries, this was the only way that isolated communities could bury their dead across rivers, across open more land in all weather. Today, I'm not just going on a hike. Today I'm walking straight into one of England's strangest and most sorrowful histories. This is Dartmore and this is the Leech Way.

[00:00:39]For centuries, this was the only route to carry the dead to their final resting place.

[00:00:47]Dartmore, the land of toss, evil hounds, and one of the longest corpse roads in the country. Lich was the old English word for body from where the path gets its official name. They called this the way of the dead, a 12mile path across the desolate English moors. This isn't just a trail. This is quite sinister pathway at times that winds across the northern wastes of the moore. Its story really begins in the 1200s with the founding of what were known as the ancient tenementss. These were just remote farmsteads, isolated little pockets of life scattered across the valleys. For the people living in these isolated settlements, life was pretty hard and death was even harder. You see, all these farms fell under the parish of Litford, which meant that this tiny village on the far west of the moore was the one and only designated burial site.

[00:01:59]Now just imagine getting the news that a loved one has passed away and knowing that your duty is to carry your loved one along a 12mi sometimes 17 miles worth of well this on this path unforgiving terrain and very likely bad weather. Although in 1260 the bishop of exat granted only to some to use the much closed church of Widcom, newer farms were built in the 15th 16th century and these didn't get the same permission. Plus Litford remained the administrative center for the Moore home to the courts. So this route was still used for centuries by the living and the dead.

[00:02:54]That is an old and powder factory. This is part of what was known as the Dartmore powder mills from the 19th century.

[00:03:05]They made blasting powder here for quaring and mining. The powder mills are a strange thing to stumble upon and a path built for carrying the dead.

[00:03:18]It's half collapsed, no fences. It's just abandoned.

[00:03:24]That people were working with explosives in the middle of nowhere.

[00:03:48]Well, get this. My microphone as soon as we enter this place stopped working. Um, it was fully charged. I only used it for a couple of hours. It has a 9hour battery life and it's dead.

[00:04:08]The next stop is Whisman Woods.

[00:04:14]We're back into the leechway. I have the powder mills right behind me and the path isn't that obvious as you can see.

[00:04:23]It's just walked on but there are no signs. We're making our way onto Long for tour and we're taking a little detour.

[00:04:34]Technically is not on the leech way is on the other side but it felt wrong to be here and not go and visit. I've been there before. I made a video almost 3 years ago. I will link it below. It's very old, so I have to warn you.

[00:04:55]All right, let's climb up. I'm starting to understand why people believed paths like this absorbed the weight of every body that crossed them. or Dartmore tradition holds that roots used again and again for the same purpose slowly take on the nature of that purpose.

[00:05:15]Funeral roots became death associated paths. People used corpse roads for funerals and tried not to use them for anything else. Wisman's wood is one of the last surviving patches of ancient high alitude oak woodland on Dartmore.

[00:05:36]What you're looking at now is only a fraction of what used to be here ago. Woodland like this would have covered much more of the moore before it was cleared for grazing and farming.

[00:05:54]Wisman might come from the old Devon word wished which means eerie, haunted, you know, something is not quite right.

[00:06:04]It's the same name given to the wished hounds here in Dartmore which are the black hounds of hell. The trees are stunted and twisted. The rocks are buried under thick moss and lykan and the whole place has that feeling of somewhere that has been left alone for a very long time.

[00:06:26]Local forklaw says it was once used by the druids. Actually some stories about human sacrifice as well.

[00:06:35]And there are also older stories about the wild hunt. A spectral pack of black hounds with burning red eyes set to ride across the mall. And in some versions of the legend, they pass through Wisman's wood.

[00:06:53]And if you hear them coming, don't wait around to find out what they want. Every sound, every whisper coming out of the woods is different. Has that quality to it like really heavy. Either it's the place or my imagination. Honestly, I don't know.

[00:07:19]You can hear voices.

[00:07:27]Coming back up to the Leech Way and to Longa for Tour.

[00:07:32]There are no path markers out here, just a faint line in the ground that only exists because people keep walking it.

[00:07:42]There are a couple of tours around here.

[00:07:45]These are like landmarks.

[00:07:48]These doors have been used for navigation for thousands of years. They look manmade, don't they? officially they're not just granite forced up through the earth and shaped over hundreds of millions of years. But I still find that hard to believe standing next to one. And I was surprised to find that giant legends on Dartmore do actually exist. They're the stuff that came before the druids, witches, and black dogs. as if people looked at these things and and the first explanation they reached for was something and almost put them here and that is exactly the same thing I thought and all the fords where the path drops down into the water and the river crossings aren't accidental.

[00:08:41]>> It is quite common on corpse roads to cross water regularly.

[00:08:47]Well, partly because it is the only way through and also because they believed that the water would stop spirits from following. If something tried to come back with you, the water was enough to stop it. Almost every corpse road does this. Not because it's the easiest way through the landscape, but because people believed that running water stopped spirits from crossing. that if a soul became restless, if it tried to follow the mourner's home, water would break that connection.

[00:09:25]This is our major crossing. That's the river Tavi. And there's a set of stepping stones here called Cataloo steps. And after heavy rain, as you can see, they're completely impossible.

[00:09:42]Well, the ground is buggy and uneven.

[00:09:45]Think about trying to get across with a cart and bodies on top of it. Probably more than one. It would have been slow and risky. There are other accounts, especially from other corpse roads in the country of bodies being swept away by the current and not found for days.

[00:10:05]And around places like these, this is where people say they can hear things. I mean I can hear men talking and there is no one around. And just before the crossing there is a small patch of trees. Now this is called coffinwood.

[00:10:24]The name tells us exactly what it was for.

[00:10:28]One theory is that this was where the bodies were transferred after being carried across the mall on horseback and they'd be placed into a proper coffin here for the final approach to Lford.

[00:10:50]When medieval mourers were walking this path out here in this kind of emptiness, that's when the stories attached to the leechway start to surface. You think a route built for carrying the dead would be overflowing with ghost stories, but there aren't many. and the ones that exist are specific.

[00:11:12]>> It's not hard to see how these stories took hold. Medieval life sat in an awkward place between religion and folklore that in medieval times.

[00:11:24]>> The church maintained >> that there was a hell, a heaven, and a purgatory. But forklaw insisted on something else entirely.

[00:11:36]that sun debt didn't settle. They stayed and some of them came back. Writers from that period describe what they called revenants. These weren't wispy ghosts.

[00:11:51]They were the walking dead. You know that they were entities that came out of the graves and terrorized entire villages. the dead getting up again, walking and making people sick and turning up where they shouldn't be.

[00:12:08]These stories weren't about just just people. There were cruel people who mistreated others in life that that died suddenly or that weren't buried properly.

[00:12:25]The message is pretty clear. live badly and no heaven for you.

[00:12:32]Also, medieval people didn't understand bacteria. They didn't understand the composition. What they did know was that sickness followed death.

[00:12:43]That being near the dead often made people ill. So, Revenant stories also worked as a kind of public health warning. Don't dig up the bodies. Don't touched corpses. Don't mess with graves.

[00:12:57]And maybe most importantly, bury people properly. A lot of Revenant stories start with improper burials, which suddenly makes corpse roads make a lot more sense. This path isn't just about getting someone to church. It's about making absolutely sure they put in the ground the right way. Because in the medieval mind, if you got it wrong, the dead didn't just stay dead. When you look at the leech way through that lens, the rituals start to make sense.

[00:13:34]The water crossings, the long exhausting route to consecrated ground, all of it was about making sure the dead arrived where they were supposed to go and stayed there.

[00:14:12]Hey, man.

[00:14:25]It's out here in this kind of emptiness that the stories attached to the leechway start to surface. The main legend is of a phantom funeral procession. People seeming figures moving slowly across the mall.

[00:14:43]Sometimes described as monks in white, sometimes it's just shapes.

[00:14:53]There are also reports from different times of people walking into dark figures on the path and then realizing there's nothing actually there.

[00:15:04]It's not hard to imagine what this place would have felt like to someone who genuinely believed that the dead could walk.

[00:15:13]>> I have to say, guys, this feels like a pilgrimage of sorts. Um, I can imagine these people having to walk around the beachway with CS and bodies and whatever the weather.

[00:15:29]Wow.

[00:15:40]We are I'm approximately 1 mile from this bridge. So, I can imagine how these people felt knowing that we were almost there.

[00:15:52]12 miles in all weather is exhausting, is dangerous, definitely taxing on the body. I haven't seen a leechway sign for couple miles, but finally we're here.

[00:16:21]How old this is? Look. Oh my gosh.

[00:16:33]Okay, looks like we are at the last bit of our walk.

[00:16:42]And well, it's possibly one of the most atmospheric because we are going to walk through hallways.

[00:16:56]This is beautiful and real creepy at the same time. All right, let's go through it.

[00:17:06]>> Actually, see how deeply it's been worn into the earth.

[00:17:12]Look at this >> of people walking the exact same route with horses, carts, and funeral processions all heading the same way towards Lidford.

[00:17:26]Well, let's say that it's haunted.

[00:17:35]That gave me a little bit of goosebumps.

[00:17:42]I can see the end of it.

[00:17:44]>> And as I'm walking here, there's something that gets me. And that is once the burial was done, they still had to turn around and walk all the way back across the moore again.

[00:18:13]Wow. The It's absolutely stunning.

[00:18:43]We're crossing more water. Wow.

[00:18:50]Oh, wow. That is gorgeous.

[00:19:25]And this is what they were walking towards. Litford's Church. The end of the journey. It was proper burial in consecrated ground and it meant safety in the medieval mind.

[00:19:43]Well, this is finally over. I have enjoyed myself immensely, even if it was really hard work. And as you can see, I am absolutely drenched. So, time to get changed and think I'm going to have a pint down there. Thank you so much for being here and I hope you enjoyed the video. I'll see you soon. Bye.