Dartmoor

Dartmoor: What You Need to Know Before You Go

Dartmoor covers 954 square kilometres of upland moorland in Devon, most of it above 300 metres, and it is the largest and highest area of granite moorland in southern England. The landscape is bleaker than most of Devon and that is the point. Granite tors sticking up from bog, wild ponies, fog that arrives without warning in summer - this is not the Cotswolds. People who expect prettiness are sometimes wrong-footed; people who want space and wind and a sense of proper wilderness usually find what they came for.

What to see

Haytor Rocks is the most accessible and most visited tor, about 7km west of Bovey Tracey. The car park is on the B3387 and the walk to the summit takes 15 minutes on a clear path. At the top you can see across the moor to the south Devon coast on clear days. The granite quarry below Haytor on the southern slope is interesting: the Haytor Granite Tramway (1820) ran down to the Stover Canal using granite rails cut from the rock; some sections of the tramway are still visible.

Wistman’s Wood is one of the oldest woodlands in Britain, a relict of the ancient upland oakwood that once covered Dartmoor. The trees are ancient, stunted, and covered in moss; the boulders between them are slippery year-round. It is a 45-minute walk from the Two Bridges car park. Worth it, but not in bad weather unless you are comfortable with the navigation.

Grimspound is a Bronze Age settlement enclosure on the open moor above Widecombe, with the remains of around 24 roundhouse foundations visible inside a granite boundary wall. It dates to around 3,500 years ago and you can walk into and around it freely. Conan Doyle used it as a setting in The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Navigation

Dartmoor has a Right to Roam designation, meaning you can walk anywhere on the open moor (not enclosed fields) without keeping to a path. In practice this means you need either a 1:25000 OS Explorer map (OL28 covers most of the national park) or a reliable GPS. The moor looks featureless in cloud; tors that were landmarks when you set out become invisible and directions become guesswork. Do not underestimate this.

The military uses northern Dartmoor for live firing exercises. The firing ranges are marked on OS maps; check the DTA (Defence Training Estate) website for live firing dates before heading onto Ringmoor Down or Okehampton Range.

Eating and sleeping

The Warren House Inn on the B3212 between Postbridge and Moretonhampstead sits at 434m elevation and claims to have had a fire burning continuously since 1845. The bar meals are good (venison burger, local beef) at around GBP 14-18. It is also genuinely one of the most isolated pubs in England, which is its own appeal.

In Widecombe-in-the-Moor, the Rugglestone Inn is a small, unspoiled pub with no mobile signal and draught ales at sensible prices. It does a proper ploughman’s lunch. The village is the setting for the folk song about Widecombe Fair (Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce) and does fill up in August.

For accommodation, the range of self-catering cottages near Bovey Tracey and Moretonhampstead is wide. The Gidleigh Park Hotel near Chagford is exceptional (two Michelin stars, from GBP 450 per night) if budget is not a concern. At the other end, Bellever Youth Hostel in the forest near Postbridge charges around GBP 20-25 per night for a dorm bed and has direct access to river swimming.

Dartmoor in October is underrated: the bracken turns copper, the mists are atmospheric rather than dangerous, and the moor is noticeably quieter than summer.