FGU Summary: Dartmoor is a large, wild, high moorland landscape that rises dramatically out of the lowlands of south-west Devon, where it overlooks the rolling ridges of the Culm to the north and the sheltered, settled lands of
South Devon to the south. Only a tiny fraction (less than 1 %) of the Character Area is urban and 11% is woodland. Almost all of the Character Area is LFA (96%) and National Park (97%), and 46% is Environmentally
Sensitive Area (ESA). A large proportion of the area (39%) is common land, which has implications for its management.
Dartmoor is underlain by a large granite batholith with an aureole of metamorphic rocks including tin, copper and china clay bearing deposits.
2 sub-units: high moor; enclosed landscapes around the eastern, southern and western edges of Dartmoor.
1. Settlement & Development
Widespread evidence for Mesolithic activity, with evidence for extensive clearance of woodland and formation of peat after c.5000 BC, Neolithic rubble banks (as Bodmin, Stowes Pound) (eg Roos Tor) and stone rows (at limit of cultivation) and cairns close to settlements, chambered tombs (eg Spinster’s
Rock) providing further evidence of settlement prior to Bronze Age.
Abundant evidence of Bronze Age activity, including 5000 round houses (eg Fernworthy Reservoir) mostly associated with enclosures and substantial planned co-axial and less regular boundary banks
(‘reaves’) of Middle Bronze Age date (c.1400-1000) relating to areas of settlement and territories. Best preserved where later farming has been less intense, on east side of moor (eg Rippon Tor, Kestor and
Dartmeet). Varied sizes and types of stone circles.
Evidence for Iron Age more fragmentary, hillforts (eg Hembury) and enclosed settlements being found on the moorland fringes and lowlands. Similar more scattered picture for Romano-British period, including elements of roads and forts at North Tawton and Okehampton.
Predominant settlement pattern comprises scattered farmsteads and hamlets, including a high proportion of medieval or earlier origin. This ancient pattern of settlement is intermixed with some nucleated settlements, evident by late 11 th century but continuing to develop in 12 th and 13 th centuries.
Late Saxon period saw foundation of abbeys at Buckfast and Tavistock, and earlier (c900) defended trading settlement (burh) at Lydford.
12 th and 13 th century expansion of settlement onto moorland fringe and the higher moorland above
1000ft, accelerating after disafforestation of the moor in 1239. Contraction of settlement after early 14 th century leaving substantial number of deserted settlements (including excavated examples at Hound
Tor and Hutholes).
Smaller manor and gentry houses, and more rarely country houses (Castle Drogo) another distinctive feature.
Tin mining from Bronze Age. Extensive remains of 13 th -19 th century extraction sites include streamworks on hillsides and valley bottoms, leaving spoil dumps, banks and artificial channels, pits to exploit lode outcrops and openwork quarries (eg Newleycombe Valley) and from early 19 th century deep mining using steam (eg Mary Tavey). Crushing and dressing processes have left stamp mills and other prominent features in landscape.
Quarrying granite developed into a major industry from the late 18 th century, with the workings at
Haytor.
Military training a feature of the moor from 1880s, and its remains are extensive (hutted camps, rifle and shell ranges).

Reservoirs, commencing with Tottiford in 1861 and continuing into later 20 th century (eg Avon 1957 and
Meldon 1970).
Granite and slate are widely used building materials but cob, thatch and other materials are present in the older buildings.
2. Agriculture
Moor has long history of common grazing for settlements in surrounding area. Strip lynchets and arable strips bear witness to extent of cultivation in 12 th /13 th centuries.
Economy from 15 th century primarily pastoral in nature, with rearing of cattle for export on the hoof a major feature and more intensive mixed farming (including cider production to south) on the fringes of the area. Arable cultivation expanded considerably in some areas from late 18 th century, limekilns of late
18 th /19 th century date built for enriching acid soils with lime.
High concentration of pre-1750 farmstead buildings, these mostly comprising threshing barns (including combination buildings with cattle at one end), farmhouses and some early examples of linhays for cattle.
Some bank barns dating from late 18 th to mid 19 th centuries, many farmsteads having cattle yards for fattening added in the mid-late 19 th century. Open-fronted linhays a distinctive feature, facing into cattle yards. Cider houses typically incorporated with stabling and other functions into combination ranges.
Ash houses a distinctive feature to the east.
Some enclosed courtyard plans, mostly on larger and high-status farms, some as developed or remodelled in the early-mid 19 th century with wheel houses for threshing machinery. Predominant farmstead plans comprise dispersed layouts, sometimes with farmhouse attached to buildings.
The 15 th to 17 th century longhouses on the moor’s eastern fringe comprise a nationally-important grouping. Late 18 th and 19 th century linear farmsteads, on a smaller scale and without the connection between house and farm buildings, associated with ‘newtakes’ from the moor within large rectilinear fields in 19 th century.
3. Fields and Boundary Patterns
Earthwork remains of medieval settlements and associated field systems as at Hound Tor.
Strong irregular field patterns, characterised by dry stone walls, stone-faced hedgebanks and hedges, representing a mix of piecemeal enclosure of medieval strips, generally complete by 16 th century (for example around Challacombe), to the home closes of ring-fenced medieval farms on the moorland edge.
Larger and more rectilinear fields of late 18 th and 19 th century date (newtakes) on some higher ground, especially in the south and west.
4. Trees and Woodland
By the late Bronze Age, woodland was probably mainly confined to the lowest slopes and valley bottoms.
Substantial late 19 th /20 th century afforestation.
Charcoal-burning pits in woodlands (eg Holne Chase).
5. Semi-Natural Environments
Long standing areas of grassland and unimproved pasture are both rich in species and in the surviving visible evidence of earlier cultivation and settlement (the palimpsest landscape is certainly one of the

richest in England, with medieval over successive phases of earlier boundary, settlement and cultivation features).
6. River & Coastal Features
Masonry bridges are part of the two main concentrations of medieval-18 th century bridges in England
(Devon and Cornwall, and north and west Yorkshire).