Kitty Jay's Grave

Deep in the Dartmoor wilderness between Exeter and the moor's higher reaches sits one of Devon's strangest roadside graves - a solitary headstone marking the burial place of a woman nobody's quite sure about. Kitty Jay died in 1688, allegedly by her own hand after being seduced and abandoned. The story's murky, mind you. Some say she was a servant, others a local girl done wrong. What's certain is that she ended up buried at a crossroads, which was where suicides went in those days - unholy ground, away from proper churchyards.

The grave itself is modest. You'll find it on a quiet lane with gorse and heather all around, the kind of spot that feels genuinely isolated even though it's accessible by foot. There's no visitor centre, no interpretive boards, just a weathered stone and centuries of local legend. People leave flowers and trinkets, which speaks volumes about how the story's captured imaginations across generations.

Historically minded visitors and moorland walkers will find this worthwhile, though don't expect more than twenty minutes at the site itself. It works brilliantly as a stop on a longer Dartmoor walk rather than a destination in its own right. The surrounding moorland - part of Dartmoor National Park just six miles away - offers proper hiking. Spring and summer beat autumn for mood, though autumn rain does add to the atmosphere, if you're into that sort of thing. Completely free, completely open to the elements, and genuinely thought-provoking in a way many polished tourist attractions aren't.