Dartmoor National Park Authority

Dartmoor’s Historic Settlements and Conservation Areas

Dartmoor’s settlement pattern is based upon scattered farmsteads, hamlets, villages and small market towns. These markets centres owe much of their prosperity to the tin and cloth trade and their locations are associated with the ancient routes across the moor. Two of them, Ashburton and Chagford, were also important being created stannary towns in 1305. (Devon had four stannary towns in all, the other two, Plympton and Tavistock being just off the moor.) It was here that tinners were required to bring their ingots to be assayed (weighed and tested for purity) and a tax levied upon them.

Many towns retain early property boundaries which still strongly determine their form and character. These are known as burgage plots and are characteristically long thin land divisions which keep the street frontage narrow but allow for plenty of development behind. This pattern is easiest to see in the medieval “new” town of South Zeal. Although now perhaps usually seen as a village, it was a newly founded and laid out town in the 13th Century. However, it did not grow through the following centuries but rather remained a wealthy, if modest establishment. This has resulted in a remarkably intact survival of a medieval town layout. Read more about the South Zeal Burgage Plots  (406Kb - PDF Help)

Another remarkable survival of an historic settlement on Dartmoor is Lydford; a late Saxon burh ( a settlement with royal approval to be fortified) and one of only five boroughs in Devon mentioned in the Domesday Book. Again, like South Zeal, Lydford did not prosper and grow into a modern town but rather shrunk in status to a modest village. This has resulted in the survival of the early medieval street pattern and fortifications.

The main mechanism for the care and management of our best historic settlements is based on the designation of Conservation Areas. There are 23 Conservation Areas on Dartmoor which are considered to have special architectural or historic interest. The National Park Authority has a duty to designate new conservation areas and to formulate and publish from time to time proposals for the preservation and enhancement of all its conservation areas. As part of this process the Authority has recently undertaken the production of Draft Character Appraisals which identify and define the special interest of each area and which will form the basis of planned enhancement proposals for these areas of special architectural and historic interest. Resolution of issues relating to the historic environment requires an understanding of their special character.

The Conservation Areas on Dartmoor focus on the historic cores of settlements. Such areas have a mixture of individually listed buildings and non-listed buildings, but in considering proposals for change or development, the Authority has to consider the overall character of a settlement, including the contribution made by spaces, street furniture, surfaces and trees.

The Conservation Areas on Dartmoor are outlined in the Draft Conservation Area Appraisals page.

Page updated 4 December 2009