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Dartmoor National Park Facts

Dartmoor National Park Facts
Dartmoor National Park is a 368 square mile park located in Devon, England. It was designated as a national park in 1951 and named after the River Dart. The landscape of Dartmoor National Park includes wooded valleys, windy tors, and moorland, and is considered to contain England's most bleak and wild regions. Prehistoric remains on Dartmoor date back to the Neolithic and early Bronze Age, when the climate was warmer and covered with forest. Farming practices deteriorated the land to be too acidic and the climate changed, leaving the area mostly uninhabited. Today Dartmoor has a population of roughly 33,000 in local settlements, which grows considerably during tourist seasons.
Interesting Dartmoor National Park Facts:
The granite hilltops of Dartmoor National Park are known as tors. The highest of these is High Willhays and it sits 2,037 feet above the sea level.
Despite containing the biggest granite areas in Britain, the majority of the granite in Dartmoor is located under peat deposits.
The word 'tor' is included in over 160 hill names in Dartmoor National Park, including Yes Tor, Haytor, Aish Tor, and Arch Tor.
For more than 200 years regions of Dartmoor National Park have been used by the military as firing ranges.
There is a large amount of peat in Dartmoor National Park so despite the fact that it gets a lot of rain the majority of it is usually quickly absorbed by the peat.
There are many stone formations such as standing stones, stone rows, stone circles, kistvaens, and cairns found in Dartmoor National Park. Some examples include Beardown Man, Challacombe, Drizzlecombe, Grey Wethers, and Scorhill.
There are estimated to be approximately 5,000 hut circles in Dartmoor National Park. Hut circles are oval or circular depressions that contain evidence of a stone wall that would have served as a round house foundation in roughly the 2nd century BC.
Dartmoor National Park is well known for many legends and myths such as being haunted by pixies, a spectral hound pack, and the headless horseman.
The Duke of Cornwall owns the Forest of Dartmoor, which is a privately owned portion of Dartmoor National Park. The Ministry of Defense owns 14%, the water companies own 3%, the National Trust owns 3.7%, the Forestry Commission owns 1.8%, and 1.4% is owned by the national park authority.
Towns or villages located in Dartmoor National Park include Chagford, Christow, South Brent, Horrabridge, Yelverton, Princetown, Buckfastleigh, and Moretonhampstead.
There are many landmarks located in Dartmoor National Park including Canonteign Falls (England's second tallest waterfall), Grimspound (settlement from the Bronze Age), and Two Bridges (coaching inn from the 1700s).
Visitors to Dartmoor National Park can enjoy a variety of activities including hiking, kayaking, cycling, and sightseeing.
There are free ranging ponies in Dartmoor National Park. Other wildlife includes rabbits, badgers, weasels, deer, otters, foxes, and grey squirrels.
Visitors to Dartmoor may find sheep alongside the roadways.
Dartmoor National Park is the backdrop for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Many artists and authors have been inspired by Dartmoor including Agatha Christie, R.D. Blackmore, and it served as the setting for the Quidditch World Cup in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.


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