I am not normally one for goal setting. I don’t like the pressure. I don’t have a ‘driven’ personality. I prefer a bimbling tempo. But at the start of 2020, most unlike me, I set myself the goal of walking to all the tors on Dartmoor in one calendar year. I use the word goal rather than challenge because, let’s be frank, it’s not too much of a challenge; I wasn’t doing all the tors in one go for charity, like some fit and admirable people do. The following few blog posts are my reflections on walking to all the tors before I ahead of 2021 and my next goal.
Step one, before taking a step, is working out how many tors are on Dartmoor. This should be straightforward yes? There must be a list? Of course there is. There are website lists like treksandtors Dartmoor Tors ,the Tors of Dartmoor Database , and the Dartefacts Map Database. And there are books like Terry Bound’s book ‘The A to Z of Dartmoor Tors’ (1990) all of which are really useful but include hills and outcrops, not just outcrops with tor in the name. They also include tors that are on private land and are therefore not accessible. The lists are exhaustive and include many smaller tors that you will not see named on the OS 1:25000 map. These tors are often historically known and mentioned in the works of great Dartmoor writers such as William Crossing and more recently, Eric Hemery. These lists of tors, hills and outcrops have 300 plus items on them, some many more.
A quick search on Google shows that others have wrestled with this as I was able to see discussion threads with people talking about making their own lists. Comments were exchanged as to the criteria for what they were going to include and what map, web and book sources they were going to consult. I decided that Emily Woodhouse’s list was much nearer what I wanted to achieve, but not a perfect match. Emily walked to all the tors on Dartmoor in a single expedition over 10 days (All the Tors Challenge), raising money for the Tavistock Dartmoor Search and Rescue Team. Emily chose only named tors where the word ‘tor’ was separate from the rest of the name, and also only those in the OL28 open access area which is the connected open access area comprising most, but not all of the moor. Emily’s list comprised 119 tors and she has just published a book about her challenge – E.P. Woodhouse (2020) All the Tors.
For my list I decided to include every named tor that I could find on the current OS 1:25000 map so long as it was publicly accessible. My list is the same as Josephine M Collignwood’s, in her beautiful book ‘Dartmoor Tors Compendium'(2018). In addition to the 155 listed within, I also have included Berra Tor near Buckland Monachorum (within the DNP boundary), and Blackalder Tor, Crownhill Tor, and Whitehill Tor, which are all just outside the DNP boundary at Lee Moor. High Willhays is included in my list, Josephine’s list, and indeed most lists of what constitutes a tor; being that it is both a rocky outcrop and the highest point on Dartmoor, it would be bizarre not to include it.
That makes 159 tors that I managed to haul myself around in 2020. So what next?
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