Landscape

Dartmoor National Park is recognised as one of the UK's finest landscapes. Dartmoor’s moorland core is the largest open moor in southern England and a place of remoteness and tranquillity. Radiating out from the moorland core are deep river valleys cutting through enclosed farmland with distinctive field patterns and historic features which evidence our historic relationship with the land.

Granite is a strong unifying feature across Dartmoor, found forming the distinctive tors of the high moorland and as a key element in many of the features of the enclosed landscape including stonewalls, hedgebanks and buildings.

Dartmoor’s landscape has inspired many writers, poets and painters over the centuries, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles which is set against Dartmoor’s dark and brooding landscape. More recently Steven Spielberg set his film War Horse in the vast and spectacular Dartmoor landscape.

This unique landscape continues to inspire.

To learn about the research we use to document and understand what makes Dartmoor's landscape distinctive explore our Landscape Character Assessment.