Prince William, heir to the British throne, stopped in the street in the middle of Princetown on Dartmoor to pet a spaniel puppy named Darcy and to ask her owner about her, pausing in the middle of a walkabout and still wearing his suit on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026.
Writer Tony Lee was there with a camera and photographed the moment. He posted the picture on Instagram. Lee was on a research trip in Dartmoor at the time.
“That moment when you’re on a research trip in Dartmoor and you’ve stopped where Conan Doyle stayed while writing THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES and you bump into HRH Prince William and he asks about your puppy,” Lee wrote in the caption of the post. The novel by author Arthur Conan Doyle is a story about a dog on this moor.
Lee added: “Remember to follow Darcy! She knows all the right people! @itsdarcythespaniel”
The picture was reshared on X, where it drew dozens of comments from members of the public. “What a nice surprise!!” one member of the public commented. “Aw how sweet! And the puppy liked him,” another commenter wrote.
A holidaymaker replying to the X post described being stopped in their car to let William cross the road 5 feet in front of them, and called it the making of their holiday.
A Fund for the Village
The dog encounter was accidental. The business of the day was money for the village. William came to Princetown to launch the Princetown Community Fund, which will award at least £250,000.
Locally led social, economic and environmental projects can bid for grants ranging from £500 to £40,000. Devon Communities Together will deliver the fund, and applicants can also get practical help putting a bid together. Applications opened as William visited.
The Duchy of Cornwall’s Emma Magee, who leads on communities and nature there and on Dartmoor, described the fund as a chance to celebrate Princetown. Local people, she said, should have the room to take charge of what they want to see happen — and then the money to pay for it.
Over recent months, Magee said, the Princetown Place Strategy had put the question of how investment should support the village’s future to residents, businesses and community groups. The Encounters Shop initiative is a further foundation for the fund.
Earlier in 2026 the Duchy announced a wider £1.5 million investment, of which the £250,000 forms one part, putting rental income back into the community around the prison. Housing, community projects, local economies, renewable power, environmental recovery and making farming more resilient are all in line for a share of the more than £500 million the Duchy plans to deploy over the next decade.
Crowds, Alpacas and a Letterpress
Crowds gathered as the prince made his way around Princetown. He called at Gather & Moor, the recently opened community, cultural and visitor hub and cafe in the center of the village, where he met the fund’s administrators, rangers from Dartmoor National Park and artists who sell work there.
William met residents who are drawing up a vision for Princetown. Children from the village primary school also spoke with him.
Artists Emma Hogbin and Jon Palmer, Duchy tenants who run Princetown Press, invited William to try a manual printing process using inks and pigments drawn from the moorland. They showed him how to work a historic letterpress, and he printed a broadsheet marking the occasion.
He also met the alpacas Treacle and Noodle, which belong to Gari and Karen Mann, who run Hooves and Moor alpaca trekking. William stroked the animals, wondering aloud how they had managed the summer heat beneath such thick wool. The crowd laughed when he asked whether the pair were allowed in the house.
William’s last stop was Princetown Youth Club, which received Duchy of Cornwall funding to replace its leaky roof and widen its activities. He watched teenagers work through a drama workshop.
Emma Byrom, who chairs Princetown Youth Club, said the Duchy money had kept its doors open. Children in the village, she said, do not always get the opportunities available in a nearby city such as Plymouth, because of how isolated Princetown is.
The Empty Prison Next Door
Douglas Jenner, who owns the Old Police Station Cafe in Princetown, spoke to the prince. William wanted to know about the effect of the prison’s closure on the village, according to Jenner, who said the place had needed the investment.
Princetown sits beside an empty prison. Dartmoor Prison, a category C jail, has stood empty since July 2024. It closed after high levels of radon were found in prisoner accommodation. Radon is a gas that occurs naturally in soil and rock and can cause lung cancer.
The site generates £1.5 million a year in rent. William asked for that sum to be redirected from his Duchy of Cornwall income from 2026-27 onward into local community regeneration rather than his own pocket.
