Explore England: Dartmoor
Peter Stewart is out in the wilderness
IT’S early morning and the sun is trying to cast its golden hue through a patchwork of clouds. I’m standing in front of a soaring 1,500-feet-high “tor”, or rock formation, just outside Haytor, on the southeastern fringes of Dartmoor National Park. This mighty granite outcrop makes an indelible image, one that conjures up Middle-earth.
I am here for the weekend, to revisit the wild and bleakly beautiful landscapes that fill my memories of childhood holidays. In a few months, Dartmoor will celebrate its 70th birthday as a national park, designated on 30 October, 1951.
Some might think that this vast moorland, with its oddly shaped rock formations, swathes of purple heather and marshy bogs is best visited in spring or summer, but they’re mistaken. I’ve been numerous times over the years, and Dartmoor’s mesmerising landscapes know how to put on a show any time of year, none less so than in autumn. Incredible leaf colours and those mist-laden late September and October mornings are just two of the season’s pleasures you can expect.
Dartmoor, which takes its name from the River Dart which starts here, covers an area of 368 square miles and includes the largest area of open moorland in southern England. It is both around 20 miles from north to south and from east to west. Wild and windswept, it can be surprising to think that around 33,000 people call here home. The rugged terrain makes it an ideal location for military practice; the Ministry of Defence operates three training ranges on the north moor and another three on the south moor.
The moorland is characterised by exposed granite created more than 295 million years ago, which leaves Dartmoor in contrast with the surrounding countryside. There are more than 160 tors across the park, as well as deep river valleys, vast woodlands, centuries-old trees and Bronze Age remains. Dartmoor’s exposure to strong winds and high rainfall, and the fact that it has largely escaped intensive agriculture, mean that it is home to an abundance of wildlife.
While Africa is renowned for its “Big Five”, here it’s the “Little Five” that visitors keep a look out for: the inch-long blue ground beetle, one of the largest and rarest in the UK, can be found among the moss-covered boulders and tree trunks of Dartmoor’s ancient woodlands; the
ash black slug, which is nocturnal and can exceed eight inches in length; the cuckoo, a migratory bird which arrives in April after spending winter in the Congolese tropical rainforests and departs again in July or August; the globally threatened marsh fritillary butterfly, which lives in areas of wet grassland; and charming otters, which thrive in Dartmoor’s rivers, despite them having become nearly extinct in much of lowland England.
The woodlands along the steep valley sides of Dartmoor’s principal rivers are home to rare lichens and nesting birds, such as pied flycatchers and wood warblers. Then there are the bogs and mires of the wetlands with blanket bogs, situated at the headwaters of the River Dart, the perfect habitat for carnivorous sundews and butterworts, wading birds such as dunlins, and sponge-like sphagnum mosses in shades of green, gold and red. The peat-filled bogs even play an important role in the fight against climate change; serving as a huge terrestrial carbon store, they trap an estimated 10 million tonnes of carbon, equivalent to a year’s worth of carbon dioxide emissions from UK industry. We’d be lost without them.
Not everyone’s going to get excited about slugs and bogs, of course – and nothing can beat Dartmoor’s famous ponies. There is no more iconic sight than a herd grazing together against this craggy dramatic backdrop and it’s safe to say they’re well established residents; written records of ponies here date back as far as 1012, while hoof prints found on Dartmoor during an archaeological dig were said to be 3,500 years old.
In 1950, there were an estimated 30,000 ponies on Dartmoor and while today this is more like 1,500, the herds of pedigree Dartmoor, Heritage, Shetland, Welsh and Spotted ponies are well looked after by farmers and residents. The gentle creatures are surprisingly hardy and thrive on the moorland, despite the harsh climatic conditions and poor vegetation.
You’re not allowed to feed them as it encourages the animals to gather near roads, putting them in danger.
Horse riding on the open moor is a thoroughly liberating experience and like something out of a romantic novel. Thunder out across the moor, trot along woodland trails and bridleways or explore historic byways linking many of Dartmoor’s villages. The southeastern quarter of Dartmoor National Park offers the easiest riding,
with undulating moorland, gentle valleys and a heavy dose of spectacular scenery.
Visitors are also spoilt for choice when it comes to things to see and do, with wild camping often topping the popularity list. Permitted in the northern reaches and on the eastern fringes of the park, happy campers carry everything they need in a backpack and pitch up away from roads and settlements with a “no impact” approach. It is the only type of camping allowed within the Park, and planning and preparation is key – you’re a long way away if you forget something!
Dartmoor is, of course, a walker’s paradise. On this visit I follow the one-hour Dartmoor Princetown Walk; it’s a 1.8-mile trek along a gravelled bridleway with gentle inclines, and takes in part of the Abbot’s Way, an old route along southern Dartmoor which is thought to have linked the medieval monasteries at Tavistock and Buckfast. The gentle route affords sweeping views and continues along to South Hessary Tor, from where you can even spy the Plymouth Sound on a clear day, before walking back down into Princetown, famous for the foreboding Dartmoor Prison, built during the Napoleonic Wars.
Today you can freely come and go by visiting the jail’s museum. It’s thought that Arthur Conan Doyle penned his most famous work, The Hound of the Baskervilles, during a stay at the Old Duchy Hotel, now the Dartmoor National Park Visitor
Centre in the heart of the village.
Cycling is another wonderful way to experience Dartmoor at its best. There are more than 350km of bridleways and byways as well as many winding lanes and designated cycle routes to choose from.
It’s poignant to be passing through this beautiful rugged landscape as the National Park marks 70 years since its creation out of land owned by many different people, including lots of farmers and the Duchy of Cornwall.
The moorland is managed by the Dartmoor National Park Authority, with its 22 members selected from Devon County Council, local district councils and government. It was certainly a lean operation – in 1961, the park’s expenditure totalled
£12,000 a year, with just five full-time members of staff. A year later, Dartmoor’s first head warden, or ranger, was appointed, whose duties ranged from recruiting park volunteers to creating signage for paths.
In 1985, the Dartmoor Commons Act was passed, safeguarding the moor’s interests and opening it up to the general public – and since then it’s been a story of opening Dartmoor up more and more so we can all benefit from this natural national treasure.
Fast forward 10 years and the 1995 Environment Act turned the park into a freestanding local authority with two statutory purposes: to preserve and enhance the area’s natural beauty and wildlife, and to promote opportunities for the general public to enjoy the park’s unique setting.
In the year 2000, the Countryside and Rights of Way Act afforded walkers rights to roam on more areas of Dartmoor’s open countryside.
Then, in 2020, a state-of-the-art visitor centre was opened in the hamlet of Postbridge, with the latest technology bringing to life the park’s rich heritage in outstanding detail – including the most recent discovery in 2011 of significant Bronze Age finds at the Whitehorse Hill cist (a prehistoric burial site). It’s one of Dartmoor’s numerous archeological sites which also includes a Bronze
Age ceremonial complex at Merrivale with its two double stone rows, stone circle, and variety of burial cairns.
The National Park as we see it today is largely thanks to farming, which has been the main land use here for more than five millennia and the Park Authority is constantly striving to establish a profitable hill farm economy for Dartmoor farmers.
One way is through a partnership with The Duchy of Cornwall and The Prince’s Countryside Fund, a collaboration which resulted in the Dartmoor Hill Farm Project to help the farming community add value to their businesses and to develop vocational skills.
A wide range of food and drink producers play an important part in Dartmoor’s sustainable economy, such as Claire and Adam Hyne, a local couple who founded their awardwinning Papillon Dartmoor Gin Distillery in Moretonhampstead just over four years ago. “We set up the business with a view to having something to do alongside my husband’s job as a thatcher,” says Claire. “Dartmoor is a big part of who we are: we use fresh gorse flowers from the moor as well as Devon
violets in some of our gins, with each batch made using fresh spring water from a nearby hill farm where pearlbordered fritillary butterflies are found. Papillon is named after this species and we donate 1% from every bottle sold to a local butterfly conservation project that protects this species,” she adds.
“Our gin products are available in shops, pubs and hotels across Devon. The first 200 bottles sold never left the local area when we first opened, so we’ve received a lot of local support. We feel very much part of the Dartmoor community.”
Simply put, Dartmoor would not be the place it is today of course without the efforts of the National Park staff to facilitate the conservation of the natural environment and wildlife, maintaining that ever delicate balance between us and nature.
Numerous conservation projects are currently in progress, including B-Lines South West, which creates corridors between the high-quality habitats for bees and other pollinating insects in Dartmoor with similarly important areas in other parts of Devon. The project also seeks to help farmers and landowners alike to restore and manage their wildflower grasslands to help the bees thrive.
Another initiative is the Southern Damselfly project. This insect is extremely rare, found in just four small habitats across Dartmoor’s wetland vegetation, but through the National Park’s ranger service who manage the special conditions the southern damselfly require, numbers have increased steadily year on year in the last decade.
Working for Dartmoor National
Park has been a special experience for Pamela Woods, Chair of Dartmoor National Park Authority. “For me, Dartmoor is the perfect combination of a unique and historical landscape with a living and working environment. It has been a privilege to see staff and members work together to balance conservation with the day-to-day needs of people who live and work here.”
Like so many who visit Dartmoor, Pamela finds it difficult to choose a favourite place, but “the circular walk from Batworthy Corner through Gidleigh is special for a number of reasons: bird song, hut circles, Kestor, an ancient church and castle, Scorhill circle and the stone rows all represent different aspects of humans’ relationship with the National Park.”
Dartmoor is marking this year’s milestone with a Time for Nature challenge, encouraging us all to make time for wildlife in our busy lives by completing at least five challenges from each of the following themes: Time to enjoy nature, Time to discover nature, and Time to protect nature.
After the year we’ve all had, getting back to nature is just what the doctor ordered . . . and what better place to do so than here?
Plan a trip or discover more at visitdartmoor.co.uk