DARTMOOR: UPPATON HOUSE, NEAR YELVERTON...

Uppaton House, Dartmoor...

Felt like I’d never been.

The mists shifted

And lowered and

Ultimately lifted,

Almost drawing a curtain

On everything I’d seen.

Foliage fingers caressed,

Depositing loose leaves

And seeds and

Berries, sheltering eaves:

Almost clawing at offspring,

Taking it to its chest.

Filled with ageing furniture:

Animal art, badgers mainly

And strange and

Curious carvings, plainly

From other shores,

In a home with an uncertain future.

Featured at the spacious rear,

A modern conservatory belied

And distracted and

Bemused, for the degeneration inside,

From eerie, empty rooms

Held stories and echoes and ghostly fear.

Fallen infant in swimming pool:

A death, weird calls for a parent

And opening and

Closing of a main door; transparent

Apparition of hostess at bedside

And landing footsteps of a restless ghoul.

Felt like I’d never seen.

The mists shrouded

And crept and

Drizzled in a clouded 

Sky, forming a curtain

Which closed onto where I’d been…

Pete Ray

Uppaton House had once been a small hotel on Dartmoor, near Yelverton. 

The couple which ran the business and lived there, finally moved into a bungalow in Plymouth. 

My father and mother stayed overnight at Uppaton when they attended their niece’s funeral in Plymouth. 

The accommodation had been arranged for my parents by Norma’s widower, who died soon afterwards too. 

I stayed at Uppaton House a couple of times, on their recommendation…