Dartmoor: "the last great wilderness in Southern England". Great rock-tors top many of its often heather-covered hills. Marvellous for walking, riding, tor-climbing, picnicking, kite-flying, pony-trekking and, if you’re at all energetic, not seeing other people. Just off its edge, amid woods, valleys and farmed hills, are many pretty villages (sometimes thatched) and very lively small towns. All is protected from caravans, tents and most ugliness by being in the Dartmoor National Park.
The half of the moor north of the B3212 is the highest and wildest; no villages within it, almost no cultivation. The southern half has the most spectacular tors, best wooded river valleys, a few villages (like Widecombe, Buckland) in green-field ‘oases’. The moor’s eastern edge is the softest, most wooded, most popular: Chagford, Moretonhampstead, Lustleigh and Bovey Tracey are among its best villages, and the River Teign’s is an exceptionally beautiful river valley. The Dart(s) – two of them rise in the moor’s middle and join at Dartmeet – is/are equally beautiful all the way to the sea at Dartmouth. Very lovely, too, are the valleys of the rivers Avon, Erme, Walkham and Tavy; Tavy Cleave, on the latter, is the western moor’s most dramatic place. The quality of a pub can change so quickly we hesitate to recommend, but there are plenty of them; and of places to ride or pony trek. The National Park Headquarters is at Bovey Tracey.
