Hound Tor | |
---|---|
Highest point | |
Elevation | 414 m (1,358 ft) |
Prominence | c. 26 m |
Coordinates | 50°35′46″N3°46′44″W / 50.59623°N 3.77878°W |
Geography | |
Location | Dartmoor, England |
OS grid | SX742789 |
Topo map | OS Landranger 191 |
Hound Tor is a tor on Dartmoor, Devon, England and is a good example of a heavily weathered granite outcrop. It is easily accessible, situated within a few minutes from the B3387 between Bovey Tracey and Widecombe-in-the-Moor.
The site is administered by Dartmoor National Park Authority for English Heritage as it includes the ruins of a medieval village, alongside prehistoric works of stone construction nearby.
Sabine Baring-Gould said that it derived its name from the shape assumed by the blocks on the summit that have been weathered into forms resembling the heads of dogs peering over the natural battlements. [1]
To the south-east of the tor, on a north-eastern-facing slope are the remains of Hundatorra, a deserted medieval village. This was built on land farmed originally in the Bronze Age and which may have been used for grazing in the Roman period. The village was excavated between 1961 and 1975. It has four Dartmoor longhouses, many with a central drainage channel, and several smaller houses and barns. These buildings date from the 13th century. The three grain storage barns appear to have been adapted to include corn dryers, indicative of the deteriorating climate. Pollen evidence indicates that farming had stopped by 1350, but recent analysis of pottery suggests that the village was probably occupied until the late 14th or early 15th century. [2]
The settlement is first mentioned in the Domesday Book as belonging to Tavistock Abbey:
Land for 4 ploughs. In Lordship 1 plough; 2 slaves; 1 virgate, 2 villages and 4 smallholders with 1 plough and 1 virgate. Meadow, 9 acres; woodland 2 acres; pasture, 1 league. 1 cattle; 28 sheep; 18 goats. Value 20 s.
The villagers apparently left little behind when they left, though the acidic soil would have destroyed much evidence; the excavations unearthed a single coin from the time of Henry III, and some broken pottery originating from Crockerton in Wiltshire. [3]
There are a number of older remains of human occupation nearby, including a prehistoric farmstead 400 metres north-west of the settlement, and to the south are some Bronze Age hut circles.
Outlines of medieval fields can still be seen, especially from vantage points on top of the tor. The fields are bounded by "corn ditches" - granite walls fronting a ditch, with earth piled up behind the wall.
According to a local legend Hound Tor was created when a pack of hounds were turned to stone (see Bowerman's Nose).
The 1975 Doctor Who story The Sontaran Experiment was shot on location at Hound Tor.
It is also thought to have inspired a number of artists and writers, such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in The Hound of the Baskervilles . Establishing shots in the episode The Hounds of Baskerville from the television series Sherlock were set there.
The tor is popular with rock climbers. [4]
The 2016 British Horror film The Unfolding was shot on location at Hound Tor and features the granite outcrop extensively in the film's cinematography. [5] [6]
Dartmoor is an upland area in southern Devon, South West England. The moorland and surrounding land has been protected by National Park status since 1951. Dartmoor National Park covers 954 km2 (368 sq mi).
Princetown is a village located within Dartmoor national park in the English county of Devon. It is the principal settlement of the civil parish of Dartmoor Forest.
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of the four crime novels by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely in Dartmoor, Devon, in England's West Country and follows Holmes and Watson investigating the legend of a fearsome, diabolical hound of supernatural origin. This was the first appearance of Holmes since his apparent death in "The Final Problem", and the success of The Hound of the Baskervilles led to the character's eventual revival.
Buckfastleigh is a market town and civil parish in Devon, England situated beside the Devon Expressway (A38) at the edge of the Dartmoor National Park. It is part of Teignbridge and, for ecclesiastical purposes, lies within the Totnes Deanery. It is 18 miles east-northeast of Plymouth, 20 miles southwest of Exeter and has a population of 3,661. It is a centre of tourism and is home to Buckfast Abbey, the South Devon Railway, the Buckfastleigh Butterfly Farm and Otter Sanctuary, the Tomb of Squire Richard Cabell and The Valiant Soldier.
Merrivale is a locality in western Dartmoor, in the West Devon district of Devon, England. It is best known for the nearby series of Bronze Age megalithic monuments to the south and a former granite quarry.
High Willhays, or according to some authorities High Willes, is the highest point on Dartmoor, Devon, at 621 metres above sea level, and the highest point in Southern England.
Grimspound is a late Bronze Age settlement, situated on Dartmoor in Devon, England. It consists of a set of 24 hut circles surrounded by a low stone wall. The name was first recorded by the Reverend Richard Polwhele in 1797; it was probably derived from the Anglo-Saxon god of war, Grim.
Jay's Grave is supposedly the last resting place of a suicide victim who is thought to have died in the late 18th century. It has become a well-known landmark on Dartmoor, Devon, in South-West England, and is the subject of local folklore, and several ghost stories.
The Dartmoor longhouse is a type of traditional stone-built home, typically found on the high ground of Dartmoor, in Devon, England and belonging to a wider tradition of combining human residences with those of livestock under a single roof specific to western Britain; Wales, Cornwall and Devon, where they are more usually referred to simply as longhouses and in general housebarns.
Fox Tor is a relatively minor tor on Dartmoor in the county of Devon, England.
Haytor, also known as Haytor Rocks, Hay Tor, or occasionally Hey Tor, is a granite tor on the eastern edge of Dartmoor in the English county of Devon.
Crockern Tor is a tor in Dartmoor National Park, Devon, England. Composed of two large outcrops of rock, it is 396 metres above sea level. The lower outcrop was the open-air meeting place of the Stannary Convocation of Devon from the early 14th century until the first half of the 18th century. On Parliament Rock, pictured here, the Lord Warden of the Great Court of the Devon Tinners supposedly sat during meetings of the Court. The location of the tor is just to the NE of Two Bridges.
The Hound of the Baskervilles is a 2002 television adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1902 novel of the same name.
Whiteworks is a former mining hamlet near the town of Princetown, within Dartmoor National Park, in the English county of Devon. Tin mining is central to the history of settlement at Whiteworks, which was once home to one of Dartmoor's largest tin mines. The original cottages and their inhabitants were related to this industry, until the area became used increasingly for farming in the 20th century. The site has now largely been abandoned, although Whiteworks is still on the route of many walks including Abbots Way Walk passes 500 m to the west.
Sheepstor is a village, civil parish and former manor on the western side of Dartmoor in the county of Devon, England. In 2001, its population was 53, down from 95 in 1901. For administrative purposes the parish is grouped with the parishes of Meavy and Walkhampton to form Burrator Parish Council, and for electoral purposes it is grouped with the same two parishes to form Burrator Ward. Burrator Reservoir, constructed in 1898, is to the north of the village and forms part of the northern boundary of the parish.
The Hound of the Baskervilles is a 1921 British silent mystery film directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Eille Norwood, Catina Campbell and Rex McDougall. It is based on the 1902 Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle. It was made by Stoll Pictures, Britain's largest film company at the time. It was the first British film adaptation of the famous novel.
"The Hounds of Baskerville" is the second episode of the second series of the BBC crime drama series Sherlock, which follows the modern-day adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and was first broadcast by BBC One on 8 January 2012. It was written by co-creator Mark Gatiss, who also portrays Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's brother in the series, and was directed by Paul McGuigan. The episode is a contemporary adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles, one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous works.
A tor cairn is a prehistoric cult site occurring in the British Isles, especially in Cornwall and Devon but also in Wales. It consists of a circular enclosure of stones or a platform of loose rocks surrounding a natural tor, sometimes encircled by a ditch. The diameter of the roughly 35 tor cairns ranges from 12 to over 30 metres and their height varies from 0.5 to 4.0 metres. There is usually an entrance to the enclosed area and pits in the ground between the rock outcrop (tor) itself and the enclosure.
This article describes the geology of Dartmoor National Park in Devon, in south-west England. Dartmoor gained national park status in 1951 but the designated area of 954 km2 (368 sq mi) extends beyond the upland of Dartmoor itself to include much of the surrounding land, particularly in the northeast. The geology of the national park consists of a 625 km2 (241 sq mi) core of granite intruded during the early Permian period into a sequence of sedimentary rocks originating in the Devonian and Carboniferous periods. These rocks were faulted and folded, sometimes, intensely, during the Variscan orogeny. Thermal metamorphism has also taken place around the margins of the granite pluton altering the character of the sedimentary rocks whilst mineral veins were emplaced within the granite. A small outlier of Palaeogene sediments occurs on the eastern boundary of the national park.
Hundatorra or Hundetorre is a deserted medieval village near Hound Tor on Dartmoor, Devon. The site has seen two periods of historic occupation, the first in the Bronze Age from around 1700 – 1200 BCE and deserted by 1000 BCE, and the reoccupation during the Medieval Warm Period until approximately the 14th century.