![]() Until the 1970s there were no more than a dozen such sites around the moor, usually in the most inaccessible locations. The first Dartmoor letterboxes were so remote and well-hidden that only the most determined walkers would find them, allowing weeks to pass before the letter made its way home. ![]() In 1938 a plaque and letterbox in Crossing's memory were placed at Duck's Pool on southern Dartmoor. The next person to discover the site would collect the postcards and post them. From this hikers on the moors began to leave a letter or postcard inside a box along the trail (sometimes addressed to themselves, sometimes a friend or relative)-hence the name "letterboxing". William Crossing in his Guide to Dartmoor states that a well known Dartmoor guide (James Perrott ) placed a bottle for visiting cards at Cranmere Pool on the northern moor in 1854. The origin of letterboxing can be traced to Dartmoor, Devon, England in 1854. Many letterboxers keep careful track of their "find count". Finders make an imprint of the letterbox's stamp in their personal notebook, and leave an impression of their personal signature stamp on the letterbox's "visitors' book" or "logbook" - as proof of having found the box and letting other letterboxers know who has visited. Individual letterboxes contain a notebook and a rubber stamp, preferably hand carved or custom made. Letterboxers hide small, weatherproof boxes in publicly accessible places (like parks) and distribute clues to finding the box in printed catalogs, on one of several web sites, or by word of mouth. Letterboxing is an outdoor hobby that combines elements of orienteering, art, and puzzle solving. A letterbox by Alec Finlay, with a rubber stamp poem: "There is a fork in every path".
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