It’s nothing to do with the Royal Mail, but ‘letterboxing’ on our moors is first-class fun, as Steve Brown discovers.
THE pastime of letterboxing started on Dartmoor in Devon in the mid-nineteenth century. A guide to the moor from the village of Chagford, one James Perrott, set up the first letterbox at Cranmere Pool in 1854 which was, and still is, one of the most inaccessible spots on Dartmoor. Effectively it was a glass jar hidden in a pile of stones and the idea was that you left your calling card, a message or a letter therein for the next walker to collect and post back to you and so on…