15 Facts About Dartmoor

Parts of Dartmoor have been used as military firing ranges for over 200 years.

The public is granted extensive land access rights on Dartmoor and it is a popular tourist destination.

Dartmoor is known for its tors – hills topped with outcrops of bedrock, which in granite country such as this are usually rounded boulder-like formations.

Some rivers in Dartmoor have been dammed to create reservoirs for drinking water, including the River Avon and the South Teign River .

Sabine Baring-Gould, in his Book of Dartmoor related the story of a man who was making his way through Aune Mire at the head of the River Avon when he came upon a top-hat brim down on the surface of the mire.

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Dartmoor is a Special Area of Conservation with four habitats being listed as primary reasons for the selection of Dartmoor as a SAC.

Large variety of bird species can be found on Dartmoor including ones that have declined elsewhere in the UK, such as skylark and common snipe, or are even rare nationally, such as the ring ouzel and the cuckoo.

Indeed, Dartmoor contains the largest concentration of Bronze Age remains in the United Kingdom, which suggests that this was when a larger population moved onto the hills of Dartmoor.

Dartmoor landscape is scattered with the marks left by the many generations who have lived and worked there over the centuries – such as the remains of the Dartmoor tin-mining industry, and farmhouses long since abandoned.

Indeed, the industrial archaeology of Dartmoor is a subject in its own right.

Dartmoor has inspired a number of artists and writers, such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Adventure of Silver Blaze, R D Blackmore, Eden Phillpotts, Beatrice Chase, Agatha Christie, Rosamunde Pilcher, Gilbert Adair and the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould.

Some "challenge" and charitable events take place with assistance of the military on Dartmoor including the long established Ten Tors event and the more recent Dartmoor Beast.

Objectors said that Dartmoor should be an area for recreation, and that the training disturbs the peace.

Until the early 19th century Dartmoor was not considered to be a place worth visiting: in the 1540s John Leland wrote in his Itinerary that "Dartmore is muche a wilde Morish and forest Ground", and even by 1789 Richard Gough's opinion was that it is a "dreary mountainous tract".

William Crossing's definitive Guide to Dartmoor was published in 1909, and in 1938 a plaque and letterbox in his memory were placed at Duck's Pool on the southern moor.