The Devil's Footprints: The Night Something Walked Across Devon

2026-07-24 · Enigmatic Places · 7 min read

Heavy snow fell across the east and south of Devon on the night of 8 February 1855, followed by a hard frost. On the morning of 9 February, villagers around the Exe estuary went out into the white and found a line of tracks that frightened them badly. The marks were hoof-like, each about four inches long and three across, set eight to sixteen inches apart, and they ran in single file. The shape was strangely neat. Witnesses said each print resembled the mark of a small donkey's shoe, cleanly cut, as though the snow had been branded rather than trodden.

The single file was the detail that unsettled people most. An animal moving through snow leaves a sprawling four footed clutter. This was a steady, deliberate line, one print set ahead of the next, the way a walking man leaves a trail.

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