Dartmoor National Park

Dartmoor National Park in Devon, southwest England, covers 953 square kilometres of England's highest and wildest moorland, rising from the deeply wooded valleys at the park's edges to the exposed granite plateau of the high moor at over 600 metres. The landscape is defined by the distinctive rounded granite hills known as tors — rocky outcrops formed by millions of years of weathering — of which Hay Tor (457 metres) is the most accessible by car and the most visited summit. The high moor is characterised by blanket bog, cotton grass, and peat, supporting rare upland birds including dunlin, golden plover, and merlin. Around 400 free-roaming Dartmoor ponies, a hardy native breed with a history on the moor going back at least 3,500 years, graze across the moorland and are one of the park's most beloved features. The park contains Europe's greatest concentration of Bronze Age remains, including stone circles (Scorhill Circle, Grey Wethers), extensive stone rows at Merrivale and Drizzlecombe, cairns, and hut circles. Grimspound, a Bronze Age settlement enclosure on the eastern moor, is one of the best-preserved such sites in Britain and freely accessible on foot. Lydford Gorge on the western edge of the park is a dramatic one-kilometre ravine cut by the River Lyd, with waterfalls and deep potholes, managed by the National Trust. Wistman's Wood, a remnant of ancient upland oak woodland at around 380 metres near Two Bridges, is one of England's most atmospheric sites — dwarf oaks growing from a boulder field, draped in lichens and mosses. The village of Princetown in the centre of the moor hosts the working Dartmoor Prison, built in 1806 for Napoleonic War prisoners of war.