Rock of ages

Dartmoor's granite tors aren't just adventure playgrounds for hikers and climbers - the stone they produced built major landmarks and supported local livelihoods. CLARE HARGREAVES climbs the most famous outcrop

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Along with its ponies, perhaps the most iconic features on Dartmoor are its tors - eye-catching granite outcrops whose fantastical shapes have inspired evocative names such as Vixen, Bowerman's Nose, Branscombe's Loaf and Honeybag.

Arguably the most famous, though, is Haytor, on the eastern fringes of Dartmoor National Park. Its vast twin rumps can be seen piercing the skyline from miles around. Scramble to the top and you can drink in views stretching west across central Dartmoor and east as far as the Teign Estuary. It's a treat for day-trippers, photographers and rock climbers alike. Haytor was even used as a location for the 1953 film Knights of the Round Table, for which a castle was built between its two granite peaks.

Haytor once formed a single lump of granite; it's thought that repeated cycles of freezing and thawing during glacial periods split it into the two parts seen today, named Low Man (468 metres in elevation) and High Man (519 metres).