Hameldown [Hamel Down]

About Hameldown [Hamel Down]

This expansive, broad-backed ridge offers some of the finest high-level walking on Dartmoor. A well-defined track runs the length of the heather-clad spine, passing ancient Bronze Age barrows and boundary markers. Rising above Widecombe-in-the-Moor, it serves as a magnificent grandstand for the central basin and the granite peaks of Honeybag and Chinkwell Tors.

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Did You Know?

• •The name likely derives from the Old English 'hamm', meaning an enclosure or meadow, combined with 'dun' for hill, reflecting the ancient agricultural activity that has surrounded the ridge for millennia.
• •The ridge serves as a prehistoric cemetery, home to several significant Bronze Age round barrows; excavations at Hameldown Beacon in the 19th century unearthed a rare gold-studded amber dagger pommel.
• •At the northern foot of the hill lies Grimspound, Dartmoor’s most famous Bronze Age settlement, featuring twenty-four hut circles protected by a massive perimeter wall.
• •A granite memorial stone near the summit marks the site where a Vickers Wellington bomber, crewed by the Belgian Section of the RAF, crashed during a training mission in March 1941.
• •The summit offers a clear perspective of the 'Dartmoor Forest' to the west, with the prominent mast at North Hessary Tor and the distant, rocky crown of Great Mis Tor visible on a clear day.
• •The ridge is so broad and the main track so firm that it remains one of the few places on the high moor where you can walk for miles without the traditional Dartmoor experience of losing a boot to a peat mire.