Higher Moorland Visitor Centre

Dartmoor National Park


At the tourist office–visitor centre, heritage displays include those on tin workings, gunpowder factories, ecology and legends – there's also a stunning time-lapse video.

The building used to be the Duchy Hotel; one former guest was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who went on to write The Hound of the Baskervilles. Dartmoor lore recounts that local man Henry Baskerville took the novelist on a carriage tour, and the brooding landscape he encountered, coupled with legends of huge phantom dogs, inspired the thriller.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Dartmoor National Park attractions

1. Dartmoor National Park

0.07 MILES

At first glance, Dartmoor can come as something of a shock to the senses. The largest stretch of open moorland in the southwest, Dartmoor covers an area…

2. Dartmoor Prison Museum

0.55 MILES

In the early 1800s, Princetown's infamous jail was home to French and American prisoners of war. It became a convict jail in 1850, and today still houses…

3. Merrivale Stone Rows

2.45 MILES

These two parallel stone rows are up to 260m long, with large stone slabs, or 'terminal stones' at the eastern end. In the centre, hunt out the circular…

4. Wistman's Wood

2.55 MILES

Legends swirl around this spooky patch of old-growth oak forest. According to local legend, it was a sacred site for the Druids, who conducted magical…

5. Garden House

6.7 MILES

The enchanting blend of landscapes here make this garden one of the best in Devon. Its 3 hectares encompass wildflower meadows and South African planting,…

6. Grey Wethers

6.7 MILES

At this remote site near Chagford, stone circles stand side by side on a stretch of open moor; another stone circle is 400m away near Fernworthy.

7. Tavistock Museum

6.77 MILES

Remnants from Tavistock's now vanished abbey sit in this traditional but excellent museum alongside artefacts of the town's copper-mining heyday. Look out…

8. Buckland Abbey

7.55 MILES

Founded as a Cistercian monastery and abbey-church in the 13th century, Buckland Abbey was one of Henry VIII’s ‘acquisitions’ during the Dissolution of…