By now, most people are familiar with the adventures of Albert Narracott and his courageous horse, Joey, during the First World War, having read the book or seen the film or play. However, not many realise that the story is set in North Dartmoor and is based on a real farm and the experiences of a man who took part in the conflict himself.
Michael Morpurgo, the author of War Horse, decided to write the book after a conversation with an old man in the local village pub in Iddesleigh. This man had been through the First World War with horses and had seen the mud, disease and suffering at first hand. Michael wanted to write a book which described the horror and universal suffering of war but not from either side’s point of view, so he decided to tell it from the horse’s perspective.
When the book was adapted for the big screen, filming did take place on Dartmoor, although not in the book’s exact setting (which is actually just to the north of the National Park boundary). The locations used were predominately around Meavy and Sheepstor. The Narracott family home is actually Ditsworthy Warren House. Although it’s privately owned, it can be seen from the surrounding moorland. Several changes were made to the existing buildings: the farmhouse does not have a thatched roof in real life and the building housing Joey’s stable does not exist at all but was specially built for the film.
In addition, the National Park Authority would not allow the land to be ploughed in the famous ploughing scene but insisted instead that a plastic cover be laid over the existing turf, which was then covered in soil, grass and plastic ‘boulders’. Apparently, not all of the boulders were collected after filming, and some can still be found in the area. The film crew was also let down by the weather when filming this scene: Dartmoor can normally be relied upon to give a good downpour at any time of year, but on that particular day, the sun was blazing in the sky! Fake rain was provided with water sprinklers, but, if you look carefully, you can see that, behind it, the sky is blue. Dartmoor clearly left an impression on the film’s director, Steven Spielberg, who commented, ‘I have never before, in my long and eclectic career, been gifted with such an abundance of natural beauty as I experienced filming War Horse on Dartmoor.’ He was particularly impressed with the beauty of moorland sunsets, several of which feature in the film.
As well as the film locations, you can also visit the farm that inspired the book. Situated just outside Iddesleigh, War Horse Valley Country Farm Park (https://www.warhorsevalley.co.uk/) is open from Easter until September each year. The farm is home to 10 exhibitions on War Horse, World War I and the effect it had on the local area, farming life 100 years ago, vintage farm machinery, the history of the local area and much more. You can also meet lots of farm animals and wander along trails through the surrounding countryside. And, of course, there’s a tearoom!
Nearer to home, the village of Belstone has its own War Horse tale. At the time of the First World War, some of the village men made their living by quarrying the granite from Cosdon Beacon. There is a story that one of the men and his horse were sent over to France. Both survived the war and were reunited to continue their previous lives back in Devon. The only difference was that the army had trained the horse to lie down whenever there was shelling, so every time the men used dynamite to loosen more rock, the horse would drop to the floor!
