The Shaugh Moor Project: First Report

Abstract

Viewed from the south Devon littoral with its series of good harbours the dark bulk of Dartmoor is clearly visible across the flat coastal plain. It is the largest of the five granite masses that provide a spine to the south-west English peninsula (Dartmoor, Bodmin Moor, Hensbarrow, Carnmenellis and Penwith) that were formed by the consolidation of molten material. The 500 square kilometres of the Moor form an undulating upland up to 600 m OD on the north-east side, where the greatest elevations occur. In the southern parts of the Moor the rolling tableland is 300 m to 420 m high—modern cultivation tends to cease at the 300 m contour, that is broken by numerous upland valleys and the eroded remains of tors. Today this expanse of moorland is bleak and treeless except in river valleys at the rim of the granite escarpment, although patches of contorted oak woodland survive at Piles' Wood on the River Erme, Wistman's Wood on the West Dart and Black Tor Beare on the West Okement. Pollen analyses have shown, however, that up to a height of about 360 m Dartmoor was probably covered by a deciduous forest dominated by oak that was gradually eroded by climatic trends and human activity (e.g. Simmons, 1969). It is from this central mass that the rivers of south Devon diverge. The wide upland valleys of the Tavy, Plym, Yealm, Erme, Avon and Dart plunge through characteristic deep wooded gorges near the southern granite escarpment into the South Hams and around this border modern settlement—numerous villages and a few towns are situated.