 The poet requested in his will that his name be cut in a long slab of granite |
Five years of secrecy over the location of a memorial to the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes have come to an end.BBC Spotlight's environment correspondent Simon Hall has spent two years searching for the site on Dartmoor in Devon.
He was helped by a guide, and used clues in Ted Hughes' will and his work.
And in one of the most remote parts of Dartmoor, near the source of the River Taw, he finally found the simple, granite memorial.
Ted Hughes lived in Devon for almost 40 years until his death in 1998. He loved Dartmoor in particular and his will contained a request for his ashes to be scattered there.
He also requested his name be cut in a long slab of granite, between the sources of the rivers Teign, Dart, Taw and East Okement as a memorial.
His friends say it is a fitting location.
"He was a very private man, it's a very private place," said Liz Sigmund.
 Hughes celebrated becoming poet laureate in 1984 at a pub near his north Tawton home. |
"People aren't going to be able to just easily jump out of the car and look at it.
"It's a place with an enormous sense of history which would be very important to him," she said.
And a final mystery is how the stone got there.
Ted Hughes' friends say it involved enlisting the help of Prince Charles, who owns the area, and a helicopter airlift.
The Duchy of Cornwall would say only it did not usually give permission for memorials, but as Hughes was a special and dear friend of Prince Charles, a rare exception was made.
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It's a place with an enormous sense of history which would be very important to him 
