Dartmoor National Park

Dartmoor National Park Authority Dartmoor is beautiful, wild, and full of incredible places to explore. Dartmoor’s landscape is dominated by rocks. Granite is the main rock type and can be seen in many dramatic outcrops (tors) and on boulder-strewn slopes. The granite was formed around 280 million years ago thrusting upwards under older rocks into the area we now know as Devon and Cornwall. Over a very long time, the overlying rocks have been eroded by nature to expose the granite beneath and shape the moor we see today. These processes have produced the soils and conditions to which certain wild plants are particularly suited.

Dartmoor may look like a wild landscape but it has been shaped over time by the way it has been farmed. Through a very long tradition of grazing with cattle, sheep and ponies, certain plants and habitats have thrived. Habitats such as Postbridge’s wonderful wildflower meadows exist only because of the long tradition of haymaking in the area which has favoured these species to grow.

https://www.dartmoor.gov.uk/