Date/Time
Saturday 24 May 2025
11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Categories Dartmoor Tors Festival 2025
Tickets on sale here from 12 noon on Sat 22 Feb 2025:
£12 full price • £10 or £7 if you prefer – please pay what you can*
Fantastical yet natural, Dartmoor’s 280-million-year-old tors are among the most iconic landmarks in southern Britain. Victorian antiquarians described them as ‘rock idols’, believing them to be stone deities worshipped by the Druids. Thousands of years before that, they inspired our ancestors who built ceremonial stone rows and circles aligned on them.
So what is it about stone that compels? In their new book, Rock Idols, Dartmoor locals Alex Murdin and Sophie Pierce pay homage to these fantastical forms in words and drawings, exploring their emotional power, the myths that surround them and the stories they tell.
They will be joined by acclaimed author Wyl Menmuir whose best-selling books bring us to closer understanding of the elemental forces of the natural world and who is writing a new book The Spirit of Stone, due out next year.
Wyl Menmuir is a Booker-longlisted novelist and author of The Heart of the Woods, and The Draw of the Sea. His new book, The Spirit of Stone, will be published in 2026.
Alex Murdin is an artist who draws to correct human and non-human worlds. Rock Idols is his first book.
Sophie Pierce is the author of The Green Hill, a memoir about love, loss and the Devon landscape, as well as five wild swimming guides.
Dartmoor Tors Festival
23 – 25 May 2025
This event is part of the first Dartmoor Tors Festival. All ticketed events at Ashburton Arts Centre and the Field System gallery next door can be booked at wegottickets.com/dartmoortorsfestival.
Visit Dartmoor Tors Festival for the full programme, and links to book on guided walks, workshops and other events happening elsewhere.
This is a new festival about culture and place from 23 – 25 May 2025, based in Ashburton, South Dartmoor, with events in Ashburton Arts Centre and Field System gallery in Ashburton, and other locations around Dartmoor.
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See Access, Tickets & Finding Us for more about why there are three ticket prices, plus other useful info about coming to events at Ashburton Arts Centre: getting here, parking, loos, PA tickets, etc.
* We usually have three ticket prices – please pay what you can. If you can pay the full price, that’s great. If choosing a cheaper ticket allows you to come to more things, then please do! Ticket receipts are split between the artists (it’s usually their livelihood!) and the arts centre (keeps the place going). Except on the rare occasions when we have a sellout gig on our hands, it’s always better to have someone here in the audience than an empty seat, so genuinely, please pay whatever you can.