This is supposed to be a cattle grid. For any city dwellers who’ve never come across one before, they are designed to keep livestock in certain areas without the use of fences. The livestock on our moor are ponies, sheep and cattle. Many people think the ponies are wild and although this is sort of true, they do “belong” to someone who makes money from them. So, they are kept on the moor by these grids, which prevent them from wandering off into neighbouring villages and potentially meeting with accidents on the road. If you cross a cattle grid as a driver, you know you have to watch out for unfenced animals.

Basically the way they work is that animals can’t work out how to walk across them without falling into the holes. Strangely you don’t often see animals stranded on grids. There is a rural myth that sheep have worked out that if one animal lies across the grid, her fellow sheep can walk across her back to freedom. I suspect this isn’t true and that if anyone has seen this happen then it’s more likely to be an accident. We only ever see animals on the wrong side of the grid if they have got there through a breached fence or if the grid is bunged up with rubbish.

The grids all have a path round them with a gate that can be used by people on foot or horseback, although it’s more than possible to walk across a grid. We’ve only ever owned one single dog who could manage a grid – that was Archie, who was clever enough to know where to put his feet!

You can tell the difference between locals and tourists because locals don’t change pace at all to cross the grids in their cars, whereas tourists gingerly cross at 10-15 mph. You learn quite quickly that taking them at normal pace means the mild discomfort of crossing them is over sooner! This grid has been changing shape for months. There have been dips appearing in the metal rails and a look at the underside tells you why – the H-section cast iron has been corroding in its cross-piece. This has weakened the structure to such an extent that one of the rails has actually snapped in two. At this point, the council stepped in and stopped traffic from crossing it so now there is a give-way system. Since the traffic has ceased to travel across the rails, the rust isn’t being sloughed off by car tyres and it’s starting to look rather lovely! (In a post-utilitarian sort of way!)