The School on the Moor is St Githa’s on Dartmoor. Here Toby Barrett, the daughter of an artist living in a neighbouring village, comes as a new girl the term in which the story opens. Toby (short for Tabitha) arrives every day on her pony Blackberry, and soon becomes an important member of the school. She knows the moor well, and is firmly convinced that hidden there is the great historical treasure, The Ark of the Covenant. Toby does indeed find treasure, but not that treasure.

St Githa’s, the School on the Moor, is closing unexpectedly, the headmistress is getting married and moving to New Zealand, and all pupils who want to are being transferred to Thatches, a school run by a friend of hers. How the ‘Githites’ adjust to the ways of another school, become friends with its pupils and discover the delights of a woodland rather than a moorland area, and in particular how Toby adapts to being a boarder rather than a day girl, make a most enjoyable story. But there is more – a mystery is woven into the plot and adds to the excitement of Toby and her friends.

Toby has now left school, and World War II has started. Toby is doing her war work running Charity Sheringham’s small farm in Southshire. All is well until there broke out in the county a strange disease which attacked all kinds of livestock. The vet’s treatment leads Toby to become very suspicious, and after consulting her friends Jane and Dick Trevor, she goes to the police, but the strange disease spreads further. Enter a mysterious gipsy horse doctor who had remarkable healing powers. And then Dick Trevor disappears. How Toby solves the mystery makes a very exciting story, with the background of farm life in wartime.