TORS OF DARTMOOR

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Little Hen Tor

Ascending the hill, you'll begin to doubt you'll find little else of ruined Little Hen Tor, but as you near the highest point of this rubble, you will come across a section that is exposed bedrock (shown above).

Crossing has few words to say of this ruined tor when seen from the large Hen Tor where he comments: "Some rocks northward of the pile bear the name of Little Hen Tor." Hemery (p.202) adds little else: "North-east of the main pile [of Hen Tor], upstream from Shavercombe Fall and near the brook, a scattering of rocks represents the shattered remnant of Little Hen Tor." Confusion over the location of the tor was fuelled by Terry Bound who in 1991 placed it to the south of the main pile. This error was later repeated by Brown in 1995 where he gives an incorrect Grid Reference (GR) of SX 5934 6528.

Addressing the misplacement of the rocks in 2002 Tim Jenkinson writes: "In recent times both Bound (1991) and Brown (1995) have implied that Little Hen is the small stack to the south of the main Hen Tor pile. However, this is a false impression and interestingly Terry Bound revised his stance on this in 1995 to support earlier descriptions of the area from both Crossing and Hemery."

Tim also supplies the more realistic Grid Reference of SX 5980 6570 (later revised to SX 5978 6561), describing it as: "A tor reduced to rubble, its debris forms a dense clitter on the north side", adding: "Devoid of a crown this unlikeliest of tors does possess some very large and long but mostly flat boulders in its midst, none of which are more than a metre high."

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Little Hen Tor
The map above is not a navigation tool and we recommend that the grid reference shown below is used in conjunction with an Ordnance Survey map and that training in its use with a compass is advised.
Grid Ref:
SX 5978 6561
Height:
417m
Parish:
Shaugh Prior
Tor Classification:
Ruined
Access:
Public
Rock Type:
Granite
Credit:
Eric Hemery
Tim Jenkinson
William Crossing
Reference / Further Reading:
Crossing, W. (1912): Guide to Dartmoor
Hemery, E. (1983): High Dartmoor - Land and People
Jenkinson, T. (2002): The Lesser Known Tors of Dartmoor (unpublished manuscript)

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