TORS OF DARTMOOR
a database of both lesser- & well-known rocks and outcrops
Shipley TorAlthough it sits high above the Bridge of the same name, the best access to reach this tor is from the other bridge, north of Black Tor. Shipley Tor is well worth the diversion, however, with one granite outcrop interrupting the junction of some field boundary walls, commanding fine views across the valley to Black Tor and the settlement known as Rider's Rings. Hemery comments; "The south-east tip of Dartmoor, known as 'Stone Heath', drops to the border-country with a final gesture: the rocks of Shipley Tor (975 feet) tower above the slope to provide the first and last tor on the eastern ridge of Avon country, its clitter streaming down the hill-slope towards Shipley Gorge." "The fine-grained granite for which this area is notable (and which was quarried on Woola Plain a century ago) meets coarser rock in sharp juxtaposition on the very summit of the tor - a phenomenon brought about by the flow-structure of the molten magma (ref.). There is, as a result, much quartz and blue tourmaline to be seen."
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