Quickbeam Hill

This high point on the southern moor occupies a desolate, expansive plateau. Characterised by peat hags and the nearby path of the old Redlake Tramway, the summit feels remarkably remote. On clear days, the wilderness gives way to a panoramic view southwards across the South Hams to the Devon coast.

• •The name 'Quickbeam' is an archaic English term for the Rowan tree, a hardy species often found in upland areas, though very few trees of any kind survive on this exposed summit today.
• •The hill is skirted by the historic Redlake Tramway, a dismantled narrow-gauge railway built in 1911 to transport china clay; its level trackbed now provides a steady, albeit lengthy, route into the heart of the southern moor.
• •From the summit, walkers can clearly see the 'Dartmoor Volcano' to the north-west—the prominent, conical spoil heap of the abandoned Redlake China Clay Works.
• •The Two Moors Way, a 102-mile long-distance path linking the English Channel to the Bristol Channel, passes directly over the hill, marking one of its highest and most windswept sections.
• •Despite its classification as a Tump, the 'hill' is so broad and flat that in thick mist, identifying the exact highest point can feel less like mountaineering and more like a game of topographical hide-and-seek.