What is special about Dartmoor?
A sense of peace and harmony – removal from our trivial everyday preoccupations and attunement to Nature and one’s innermost nature. At Great Mis Tor, July 1999. Photo by Antony Galton. The basis of Dartmoor is a raised area of granite in South-West England which once upon a time was molten rock (magma) in the root of an Alps-like fold mountain chain. The mountains were eroded away a long time ago, exposing the core of the system. Granite is chemically mildly acidic in nature, and is hard and impermeable. This results in a tendency for waterlogged and mineral-poor conditions in relatively wet climates such as you find in upland areas of Western Britain. Soils on granite are acidic and low in mineral nutrients. This results in a rather limited but specialist flora. In the wettest areas, such as on much of high Dartmoor, the high rainfall results in both persistent waterlogging and minerals being constantly leached out of the system so that only a very restricted range of specialist plan
