text:
Dartmoor

Dartmoor is an upland area in southern Devon, South West England. The moorland and surrounding land has been protected by National Park status since 1951. Dartmoor National Park covers 954 km2.

The granite that forms the uplands dates from the Carboniferous Period of geological history. The landscape consists of moorland capped with many exposed granite hilltops known as tors, providing habitats for wildlife. The highest point is High Willhays, 621 m above sea level. The entire area is rich in antiquities and archaeological artefacts.

Dartmoor National Park is managed by the Dartmoor National Park Authority, whose 22 members are drawn from Devon County Council, local district councils and Government. The Dartmoor Commoners' Council exists to create and enforce regulations regarding commoners' rights.

Parts of Dartmoor have been used as military firing ranges for over 200 years. The public is granted extensive land access rights on Dartmoor (including restricted access to the firing ranges) and it is a popular tourist destination.

Geology

Dartmoor includes the largest area of granite in Britain, with about 625 km2 at the surface, though most of it is under superficial peat deposits. The granite (or more specifically adamellite) was intruded at depth as a pluton into the surrounding sedimentary rocks during the Carboniferous period, probably about 309 million years ago. It is generally accepted that the present surface is not far below the original top of the pluton; evidence for this includes partly digested shale xenoliths, contamination of the granite and the existence of two patches of altered sedimentary rock on top of the granite. A considerable gravity anomaly is associated with the Dartmoor pluton as with other such plutons. Measurement of the anomaly has helped to determine the likely shape and extent of the rock mass at depth.

Tors

Dartmoor is known for its tors – hills topped with outcrops of bedrock, which in granite country such as this are usually rounded boulder-like formations. More than 160 of the hills of Dartmoor have the word tor in their name but quite a number do not. However, this does not appear to relate to whether or not there is an outcrop of rock on their summit. The tors are the focus of an annual event known as the Ten Tors Challenge, when around 2,400 people aged between 14 and 19 walk for distances of 56, 72 or 88 km (35, 45 or 55 mi) between ten tors on many differing routes.

The highest points on Dartmoor are on the northern moor: High Willhays, 621 m, and Yes Tor, 619 m,. The highest points on the southern moor are Ryder's Hill, 515 m,, Snowdon 495 m, , and an unnamed point, 493 m at , between Langcombe Hill and Shell Top. The best-known tor on Dartmoor is Haytor (called Hey Tor by William Crossing), 457 m,. For a more complete list see List of Dartmoor tors and hills.

Rivers

The high ground of Dartmoor forms the catchment area for many of Devon's rivers. As well as shaping the landscape, these have traditionally provided a source of power for moor industries such as tin mining and quarrying.

The moor takes its name from the River Dart, which starts as the East Dart and West Dart and then becomes a single river at Dartmeet. It leaves the moor at Buckfastleigh, flowing through Totnes below where it opens up into a long ria, reaching the sea at Dartmouth. Other rivers flowing from Dartmoor include the Teign, the Taw, the Tavy, the Avon, and the Lyd.

Some of the rivers in Dartmoor have been dammed to create reservoirs for drinking water, including the River Avon and the South Teign River (Fernworthy Reservoir).

Bogs
Much more rain falls on Dartmoor than in the surrounding lowlands. As much of the national park is covered in thick layers of peat (decaying vegetation), the rain is usually absorbed quickly and distributed slowly, so the moor is rarely dry. In areas where water accumulates, dangerous bogs or mires can result. Some of these, topped with bright green moss, are known to locals as "feather beds" or "quakers", because they can shift (or 'quake') beneath a person's feet. Quakers result from sphagnum moss growing over the water that accumulates in the hollows in the granite.

The vegetation of the bogs depends on the type and location. Blanket bog, which forms on the highest land where the rainfall exceeds 2000 mm a year, consists mainly of cotton-grass (Eriophorum species), sedges (Carex and Rhynchospora), Bog Asphodel and Common Tormentil, with Sphagnum thriving in the wettest patches. The valley bogs have lush growth of rushes, with sphagnum, cross-leaved heath, sundews and several other species.

Some of the bogs on Dartmoor have achieved notoriety. Fox Tor Mires was supposedly the inspiration for Great Grimpen Mire in Conan Doyle's novel The Hound of the Baskervilles, although there is a waymarked footpath across it. Sabine Baring-Gould, in his Book of Dartmoor (1900) related the story of a man who was making his way through Aune Mire at the head of the River Avon when he came upon a top-hat brim down on the surface of the mire. He kicked it, whereupon a voice called out: "What be you a-doin' to my 'at?" The man replied, "Be there now a chap under'n?" "Ees, I reckon," was the reply, "and a hoss under me likewise."

Astronomy
Dartmoor is popular with local astronomers because it is remote from many sources of light pollution. However in recent years, LED street lights have caused more light pollution to be spread onto Dartmoor.

Climate
Along with the rest of South West England, Dartmoor has a temperate climate, which is generally wetter and milder than locations at similar height in the rest of England. At Princetown, near the centre of the moor at a height of 453 m, January and February are the coldest months with mean minimum temperatures around 1 C. July and August are the warmest months with mean daily maxima not reaching 18 C. Compared with Teignmouth, which is on the coast about 22 mi to the east, the average maximum and minimum temperatures are 3.0 C-change and 2.6 C-change lower respectively, and frost is at least five times as frequent. On the highest ground, in the north of the moor, the growing season is less than 175 days – this contrasts with some 300 days along most of the south coast of the county.

Rainfall tends to be associated with Atlantic depressions or with convection. In summer, convection caused by solar surface heating sometimes forms shower clouds and a large proportion of rainfall comes from showers and thunderstorms at this time of year. The wettest months are November and December and on the highest parts of the moor the average annual total rainfall is over 2000 mm. This compares with less than 800 mm in the lower land to the east around the Exe Estuary, which is in the rain shadow of the moor. Due to the influence of the Gulf Stream snowfall is not common, though due to its high altitude it is more vulnerable to snowfall than surrounding regions.

Between 1961 and 1990 Met Office data shows that there was an average of 20 days when snow fell on the moor, and over 40 days a year with hail, which is as high as anywhere else in the country. This results when cold polar maritime air that has travelled over a large expanse of warmer ocean is forced to rise over high country.

When average temperatures at Princetown between 1961 and 2000 are compared, the average annual temperature in the decade 1990–2000 was up by 0.2 C-change and the late winter temperature increased by 0.5 C-change.

Wildlife
Because of Dartmoor's height and granite geology, it experiences strong winds and has acidic soils. In consequence it has been subject to very little intensive farming, and all these factors combine to form the basis of the important ecosystems found here. The landscape is one of granite with peat bogs overlying it. While the moors topped with granite tors are the most iconic part of Dartmoor's landscape, only about half of Dartmoor is actually moorland. Equally important for wildlife are the blanket bogs, upland heaths and the oak woodlands, which are all of global importance. Dartmoor is a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) with four habitats (Northern Atlantic wet heaths with Erica tetralix; European dry heaths; Blanket bogs and Old sessile oak woods with Ilex and Blechnum in the British Isles) being listed as primary reasons for the selection of Dartmoor as a SAC. In addition the area has a population of the southern damselfly, which is also a primary reason for its selection along with populations of Atlantic salmon and otter being qualifying reasons. Wistman's Wood is one of the old sessile oak woods that contribute to the listing of Dartmoor as a SAC and is possibly a surviving fragment from the earliest Neolithic woodland clearances. It is home to exceptional epiphytic mosses, liverworts and lichens. Nearly 50 species of moss and liverwort are found in the wood along with 120 types of lichen, including Smith's horsehair lichen, speckled sea-storm lichen and pendulous wing-moss. Over 60 species of lichens grow on the exposed surfaces of the granite tors, including granite-speck rim-lichen, purple rock lichen, brown cobblestone lichen and goldspot lichen and many rare lichen grow on rocks exposed by mining that are rich in heavy metals. On the upland heaths heather (ling) and bell heather are common along with western gorse. In dry grassy areas tormentil, heath bedstraw and heath milkwort are all common. Cross-leaved heath and purple moor grass grow in wetter spots and in the boggy areas many different species of sphagnum and other mosses can be found, along with liverworts, Hare's-tail Cotton-grass, round-leaved sundew and bog asphodel, and in the valley bottoms, many different sedges, bogbean and pale butterwort all grow.

A large variety of bird species can be found on Dartmoor including ones that have declined elsewhere in the UK, such as skylark and common snipe; some are even rare nationally, such as the ring ouzel and the cuckoo. There are internationally important populations of meadow pipit and stonechat. Woodland birds include a number of migrant species, like the pied flycatcher, the wood warbler or the common redstart. Mammals found here include otters, hazel dormice and nearly all of the UK's 16 bat species. Three rare species: the barbastelle, and the greater and lesser horseshoe bats are of particular importance. The upper reaches of the rivers are spawning grounds for Salmon and trout; Palmate newts, frogs and toads breed in the numerous small pools. Two shrimp species can be found on Dartmoor: fairy shrimp that can be found in temporary pools, and, in underground streams, very rare cave shrimp. The world's largest land slug, the Ash black, is also found. Reptiles include common lizards and adders. The farmland in the wet valleys around the edge of the moors is the most important habitat for insects, including: the marsh fritillary butterfly, southern damselfly, narrow-bordered bee hawkmoth and bog hoverfly. Areas of bracken are home to the high brown fritillary and pearl-bordered fritillary. Insects found in the heathlands include the emperor moth, green hairstreak and the bilberry bumblebee. The old oak woodlands have a distinctive group of insects including the blue ground beetle and Heckford's pygmy moth, a species found nowhere else in the world.

Restoration and climate change mitigation
The South West Peatland Project aims to restore around 300 hectares of Dartmoor's peatland through collaboration with Dartmoor National Park. Preserving these peatlands will help mitigate climate change through sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. More generally, Dartmoor aims to be carbon negative by 2045.

Pre-history
The majority of the prehistoric remains on Dartmoor date back to the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. Indeed, Dartmoor contains the largest concentration of Bronze Age remains in the United Kingdom, which suggests that this was when a larger population moved onto the hills of Dartmoor. The large systems of Bronze Age fields, divided by reaves, cover an area of over 10000 ha of the lower moors.

The climate at the time was warmer than today, and much of today's moorland was covered with trees. The prehistoric settlers began clearing the forest, and established the first farming communities. Fire was the main method of clearing land, creating pasture and swidden types of fire-fallow farmland. Areas less suited for farming tended to be burned for livestock grazing. Over the centuries these Neolithic practices greatly expanded the upland moors, and contributed to the acidification of the soil and the accumulation of peat and bogs.

After a few thousand years the mild climate deteriorated leaving these areas uninhabited and consequently relatively undisturbed to the present day. The highly acidic soil has ensured that no organic remains have survived, but the durability of the granite has meant that the remains of buildings, enclosures and monuments have survived well, as have flint tools. A number of remains were "restored" by enthusiastic Victorians and, in some cases, they have placed their own interpretation on how an area may have looked.

Standing stones

Numerous prehistoric menhirs (more usually referred to locally as standing stones or longstones), stone circles, kistvaens, cairns and stone rows are to be found on the moor. The most significant sites include:
 * Upper Erme stone row is the longest on Dartmoor and in fact in the world at 3300 m
 * Beardown Man, near Devil's Tor – isolated standing stone 3.5 m high, said to have another 1 m below ground.
 * Challacombe, near the prehistoric settlement of Grimspound — triple stone row.
 * Drizzlecombe, east of Sheepstor village – stone rows, standing stones, kistvaens and cairns.
 * Grey Wethers, near Postbridge — double circle, aligned almost exactly north south.
 * Laughter Tor, near Two Bridges — standing stone 2.4 m high and two double stone rows, one 164 m long.
 * Merrivale, between Princetown and Tavistock — includes a double stone row 182 m long, 1.1 m wide, aligned almost exactly east–west, stone circles and a kistvaen.
 * Scorhill (pronounced 'Scorill'), west of Chagford — circle, 26.8 m in circumference, and stone rows.
 * Shovel Down, north of Fernworthy reservoir — double stone row approximately 120 m long.
 * Yellowmead Down, a quadruple concentric stone circle and stone rows.

Hut circles and kistvaens
There are also an estimated 5,000 hut circles still surviving although many have been raided over the centuries by the builders of the traditional dry stone walls. These are the remnants of Bronze Age houses. The smallest are around 1.8 m in diameter, and the largest may be up to five times this size.

Some have L-shaped porches to protect against wind and rain; some particularly good examples are to be found at Grimspound. It is believed that they would have had a conical roof, supported by timbers and covered in turf or thatch.

There are also numerous kistvaens, Neolithic stone box-like tombs.

The historical period

The climate became wetter and cooler over the course of a thousand years from around 1000 BC, resulting in much of high Dartmoor being largely abandoned by its early inhabitants. The earliest surviving farms, still in operation today, are known as the Ancient Tenements. Most of these date back to the 14th century, and some even earlier.

It was not until the early Mediaeval period that the weather again became warmer, and settlers moved back onto the moors. Like their ancient predecessors, they used the natural granite to build their homes, preferring a style known as the longhouse; some of theses are still inhabited today, although they have been clearly adapted over the centuries. Many are now being used as farm buildings, while others were abandoned and fell into ruin.

Some way into the moor stands the town of Princetown, the site of Dartmoor Prison, which was originally built by Isbell Rowe & Company, Plymouth, for prisoners of war from the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. The prison has an incorrect reputation for being escape-proof, due to both the buildings themselves and its physical location.

The Dartmoor landscape is scattered with the marks left by the many generations who have lived and worked there over the centuries – such as the remains of the Dartmoor tin-mining industry, and farmhouses long since abandoned. See Industrial archaeology of Dartmoor.

Ownership and access
Over half of Dartmoor National Park (57.3%) is private land; the Forest of Dartmoor being the major part of this, owned by the Duke of Cornwall. The Ministry of Defence owns 14% (see below), 3.8% is owned by water companies (see Dartmoor reservoirs), 3.7% by the National Trust, 1.8% by the Forestry Commission and 1.4% by Dartmoor's national park authority. About 37% of Dartmoor is common land.

Dartmoor differs from some other National Parks in England and Wales, in that since the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 much of it has been designated as Access land, which, although it remains privately owned, has no restrictions on where walkers can roam. In addition to this access land, there are about 730 km of public rights of way on Dartmoor, and many kilometres of permitted footpaths and bridleways where the owners allow access.

Because of the 1985 Act, Dartmoor was largely unaffected by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, which established similar rights in other rural parts of the country, until 2006, when the 2000 Act opened up much of the remaining restricted land to walkers.

In January 2023, in a high court judgement in a case brought by landowner Alexander Darwall, the right for members of the public to wild camp on Dartmoor was lost. Julian Flaux, the chancellor of the high court, ruled: "In my judgment, on the first issue set out at [14] above, the claimants are entitled to the declaration they seek that, on its true construction, section 10(1) of the 1985 Act does not confer on the public any right to pitch tents or otherwise make camp overnight on Dartmoor Commons. Any such camping requires the consent of the landowner." A protest against the new restrictions, led by local storyteller Martin Shaw, was held in January 2023. However on July 31 the ban was overturned by the Court of Appeal.

Use by the Ministry of Defence
There is a history of military usage of Dartmoor dating back to the Napoleonic Wars. Today, a large British Army training camp remains at Okehampton — also the site of an airbase during the Second World War.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) uses three areas of the northern moor for manoeuvres and live-firing exercises, totalling 108.71 km2, or just over 11% of the National Park. Red and white posts mark the boundaries of these military areas (shown on Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 scale maps). Flagpoles on many tors in and around the ranges fly red flags when firing is taking place. At other times, members of the public are allowed access. Blank rounds may also be used, but the MoD does not notify the public of this in advance.

Some "challenge" and charitable events take place with assistance of the military on Dartmoor, including the long established Ten Tors event and the more recent Dartmoor Beast.

The disused Rippon Tor Rifle Range was built to train soldiers during the Second World War, and remained in use until its closure in 1977.

Preservation

Throughout human history, the landscape has been exploited for industrial purposes. In recent years, controversy has surrounded the work of industrial conglomerates Imerys and Sibelco (formerly Watts Blake Bearne), who have used parts of the moor for china clay mining. Licences were granted by the British Government but were recently renounced after sustained public pressure from bodies such as the Dartmoor Preservation Association.

The British government has made promises to protect the integrity of the moor; however, the cost of compensating companies for these licences, which may not have been granted in today's political climate, could prove prohibitive.

The military use of the moor has been another source of controversy, as when training was extended in January 2003. The national park authority received 1,700 objections before making the decision. Objectors said that Dartmoor should be an area for recreation, and that the training disturbs the peace.

Those who objected included the Open Spaces Society and the Dartmoor Preservation Association. During her lifetime, Sylvia Sayer was another outspoken critic of the damage that she perceived that the army was doing to the moor.

Towns and villages

The designated Dartmoor National Park area has a resident population of about 33,000, which swells considerably during holiday periods with incoming tourists. The largest settlements within the National Park are Ashburton (the largest, with a population of about 3,500), Buckfastleigh, Moretonhampstead, Princetown, Yelverton, Horrabridge, South Brent, Christow, and Chagford.

For a full list, expand the Settlements of Dartmoor navigational box at the bottom of this page.

Landmarks

 * Avon Dam Reservoir – reservoir popular for walks and trout fishing
 * Bowerman's Nose – a tor said to be shaped like a nose
 * Brentor Church – remote church 344 m high on crag at western edge of moor
 * Buckfast Abbey – abbey near Buckfastleigh
 * Burrator Reservoir – late Victorian reservoir
 * Canonteign Falls – second highest waterfall in England
 * Castle Drogo – Edwardian faux castle built by Edwin Lutyens on a crag above Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton
 * Childe's Tomb – ancient burial site
 * Cosdon Hill – prominent hill, northern extremity of moor, site of beacon fire for invasion warning
 * Cranmere Pool – original letterbox site and location of the legend of Cranmere Binjie
 * Crazywell Pool – artificial lake
 * Dartmeet – meeting point of East and West Dart rivers
 * Dartmoor Prison – a prison in the middle of Dartmoor at the village of Princetown
 * Devonport Leat – human-made water channel
 * Duck's Pool – location of a memorial to local writer William Crossing
 * Fernworthy Dam & Reservoir – granite-faced concrete dam and lake in Fernworthy Forest, near Chagford
 * Fingle Bridge – a 17th-century crossing of the River Teign near Chagford
 * Great Links Tor – dominant tor on north west scarp of moor
 * Grey Wethers – pair of ancient stone circles
 * Grimspound – Bronze Age settlement
 * Haytor Granite Tramway – early tramway with stone rails; ran from quarries at Haytor to Stover Canal
 * Haytor Rock – prominent tor and viewpoint between Bovey Tracey and Widecombe
 * Hay Tor – less prominent outcrop behind Haytor Rock when viewed from the south. Popular spot for rock climbing due to its large cliff face and relative ease of access.
 * High Willhays – highest point on Dartmoor
 * Hound Tor – rugged tor with remains of Iron Age village
 * Jay's Grave – burial site
 * Lydford Gorge – deep and narrow gorge with waterfalls
 * Meldon Viaduct and reservoir – 201 m wide and 45 m high concrete dam and Victorian iron bridge which itself is 165 m wide and 46 m high
 * North Hessary Tor transmitting station – a TV mast near Princetown which can be seen for many miles.
 * Rippon Tor Rifle Range – disused rifle range
 * Redlake Tramway – disused railway
 * Spitchwick – a swimming spot where the River Webburn joins the River Dart
 * Tavistock Canal – 19th-century canal
 * Two Bridges – 18th-century coaching inn
 * Warren House Inn – highest inn in south west England, rumoured to have a fire which has not gone out in hundreds of years.
 * Widecombe in the moor, village in a valley in southern Dartmoor with a church rumoured to have been struck by lightning in medieval times.
 * Wistman's Wood – copse of stunted oaks in the valley of the West Dart near Two Bridges
 * Yes Tor – tor next to High Willhays, forming the second highest hill in Dartmoor.

In myths and popular culture

Dartmoor is known for its myths and legends. It is reputedly the haunt of pixies, a headless horseman, a mysterious pack of "spectral hounds", and a large black dog, among others. During the Great Thunderstorm of 1638, the moorland village of Widecombe-in-the-Moor was said to have been visited by the Devil.

Many landmarks have ancient legends and ghost stories associated with them, such as the allegedly haunted Jay's Grave, the ancient burial site of Childe's Tomb, the rock pile called Bowerman's Nose, and the stone crosses that mark former mediaeval routes across the moor.

A few stories have emerged in recent decades, such as the "hairy hands", that are said to attack motorists on the B3212 near Two Bridges; and the "Beast of Dartmoor", a supposed big cat.

Dartmoor has inspired a number of artists and writers, such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Adventure of Silver Blaze, R. D. Blackmore, Eden Phillpotts, Beatrice Chase, Agatha Christie, Rosamunde Pilcher, Gilbert Adair and the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould. In 1820, the newly formed Royal Society of Literature offered a prize for a poem on the subject of Dartmoor, this being won by Felicia Hemans. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fictional 1994 Quidditch World Cup final between Ireland and Bulgaria was hosted on the moor.

Dartmoor was the fictional location of a Ministry of Defence animal testing centre called "Baskerville" in the BBC drama Sherlock season two episode "The Hounds of Baskerville", first broadcast in the UK on 15 January 2012, and in the US on 20 May of that year.

Leisure activities
Until the early 19th century Dartmoor was not considered to be a place worth visiting: in the 1540s John Leland wrote in his Itinerary that "Dartmore is muche a wilde Morish and forest Ground", and even by 1789 Richard Gough's opinion was that it is a "dreary mountainous tract". At the turn of the 19th century John Swete was one of the first people to visit Dartmoor for pleasure and his journals and watercolour paintings now provide a valuable historical resource.

The oldest leisure pursuit on the moor is hill walking. William Crossing's definitive Guide to Dartmoor was published in 1909, and in 1938 a plaque and letterbox in his memory were placed at Duck's Pool on the southern moor. Parts of the Abbots Way, Two Moors Way and the Templer Way are on Dartmoor.

Letterboxing originated on Dartmoor in the 19th century and has become increasingly popular in recent decades. Watertight containers, or 'letterboxes', are hidden throughout the moor, each containing a visitor's book and a rubber stamp. Visitors take an impression of the letterbox's rubber stamp as proof of finding the box and record their visit by stamping their own personal stamp in the letterbox's logbook. A recent related development is geocaching. Geocache clues make use of GPS coordinates, whereas letterboxing clues tend to consist of grid references and compass bearings.

Whitewater kayaking and canoeing are popular on the rivers due to the high rainfall and their high quality, though for environmental reasons access is restricted to the winter months. The River Dart is the most prominent meeting place, the section known as the Loop being particularly popular. Other white water rivers are the Erme, Tavy, Plym and Meavy.

Other activities are rock climbing on the granite tors and outcrops, some of the well-known venues being Haytor, Hound Tor and The Dewerstone; horse riding, which can be undertaken on any of the common land; cycling (but not on open moorland); and angling for wild brown trout, sea trout and salmon (although much of the river fishing on Dartmoor is privately owned, permits are available for some stretches ) .

Visitor centres
The park's main visitor centre is located in Princetown and features exhibits about Dartmoor's history, culture and wildlife, as well as changing displays of local art. The visitor centres located in Postbridge and Haytor feature information, maps, guidebooks and items for exploring the area.

Bus
Dartmoor is served by the following bus services:
 * 359 Moretonhampstead – Exeter (Country bus)
 * 271 Newton Abbot – Bovey Tracey – Widecombe (Summer Saturdays only) (Country bus)
 * 173 Moretonhampstead – Chagford – Exeter (Dartline)
 * 178 Newton Abbot – Bovey Tracey – M'tonhampstead – Chagford – Okehampton (Country bus)
 * 98 Tavistock – Princetown – Postbridge (Oakleys)

Other bus services operate in Dartmoor on a less frequent basis.

GWR operate direct trains from Exeter to Okehampton.

title: Dartmoor


text:
Talk:Dartmoor

NPOV Issues
I know nothing about this, and therefore don't want to make any changes, but I can't imagine that "continually under threat from the industrial conglomerates..." is quite written from the neutral point of view. --LMS

Er, it's nothing short of factual. These outfits are continually trying to dig up Dartmoor (they've just made their fifth application in as many years to encroach (they're after about an eighth of the moor at the moment, and area of approx 45 square miles)) and damage a) the environment b) the archaeological and cultural heritage for ever for everyone else, for generations to come, in the interests of short term material gain. I think this represents a threat to me and pretty much everyone else who lives in the southwest.

Dartmoor is one of the great unsung wonders of the world. Their spoil tips look diabolical. They create waste and destroy wildlife. But then, I suppose if I were being entirely neutral, I would just accept their depradations; I was just being light on them. Maybe in the interests of neutrality I ought to be a little more hostile? Or should I be taking a line like 'Chernobyl represents an interesting contribution to Russian industrial history', or 'Waco was a change in direction for American policing strategies'? :-) sjc
 * I would not dream of suggesting anything so absurd, and the fact that you think I might indicates to me that you fail to understand what I said. I simply want you to read neutral point of view and pay careful attention. If any sizable minority of the population--even, or especially, a minority that you disagree with strongly!--would disagree with how you have worded something, or what facts are selectively presented, then the best form would have you to "go meta" and describe what the different views of the situation are, in a way that everyone would be able to agree was fair and accurate. This is the most prudent way to write a collaborative, international encyclopedia that people of all sorts of different views will want to contribute to. See also talk:Creationism for a good discussion of these principles. Wikipedia is not the place for activism of any kind, if that's what you are engaged in (and I won't take a position on it--it just seems possible to me, that's all). --LMS
 * No, I got you the first time, Larry, I was maybe being a bit too sardonic for my own good. I think that the only people who would disagree in this instance would be the directors and majority shareholders of the china-clay mining companies, and in my book they deserve pretty much everything they get. Even they're beginning to realise that they can't get away with it any longer themselves (see my note below). I fully intend to go meta on this one, in any case, but as I'm working in London and won't be at home in the south-west till next weekend, I can't really cite case notes till then.... sjc

I would side with sjc; I've seen such situations elsewhere and know that what sjc reports is nothing unusual. On the other hand, I think it would make the article stronger if it included some examples and elaboration on this. For example, listing 2-3 instances where the conglomerates have taken or attempted to take actions which would harm Dartmoor.

If I remember correctly, in England there is no government-backed national park system analogous to the US Park service, but instead, a group of private citizens banded together to create a trust to protect the natural areas of England, and these groups continue to fight, even to this day, to protect the natural areas. It would be worthwhile to make mention of how Dartmoor is being preserved, and by whom, and for what reason.

-- BryceHarrington

OK, I'll attach reference to the Dartmoor Preservation Society, and the laughable attempt (it's funny now, it wasn't at the time) to redirect the river Teign so they could dig up more china clay.... I'll also annotate their previous depradations in a separate article. sjc

And the good news today, Tuesday, 21st June 2001, is that both Imreys and Watts Blake Bearne have bowed to public pressure and agreed to renounce their licences. That just leaves English China Clay. sjc

Perhaps there could be a link to a NON-WikiPedia web page where activists (and those interested in the 'non-|neutral point of view' side of things) could go to find out more about this? Does this violate the WikiPedia policy or community?

Er, we're not really activists, just trying to maintain the environmental status quo. But FYI you might like to look at the Dartmoor Preservation Association pages... These are at: http://www.dartmoor-preservation-assoc.org.uk/pages/objects.htm sjc

Thanks! I guess what I meant by 'activist' was 'person who wants to help'... and I think that it's quite within neutrality to say, as you have, "Here's a situation that could be better with your help". Now just get the presveration society to accept subscriptions from overseas (PayPal?), and we'll really help :-).

Given the general membership of DPA it is kind of miraculous that DPA have web pages at all! I will try and get it raised though, and thank you for your concern. As far as I am concerned, Dartmoor is one of the most beautiful places in Britain, perhaps the world. sjc

This article is definitely not NPOV. If a mining company has a legal right to extract resources from a given area, then thats all there is to it, regardless of your emotional attachment to their future strip mine. Vroman

I always felt that the amount of space devoted to this issue in the Dartmoor site was a little excessive. Most of my family live on Dartmoor, and I can confirm that it IS an issue, but one of many. However, the page has grown to the point where it is better balanced. On the other hand, it might be an idea to give this a page of its own, and link it to 'Dartmoor'. After all, the 'Dartmoor wildlife' and 'Dartmoor tin-mining' sections are separate, and both highly significant to the moor and its history. JonC

ACCESS LAND
NEW TOPIC 'Access Land' is similar to 'Open Country' in the Peak Park - this designation, which applies to major areas of Kinder Scout and Bleaklow amongst others, well predates my first outings there in the early 60s, and existed I think from the Park's inception. I have not edited (but may do sometime - now done). My Dark Peak map of circa 1972 for example shows a vast swathe of this part of the Peak designated as National Park Access Land Linuxlad 17:31, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Highest, Deepest, Longest...
(All good Guinness Book of Records stuff :-))

Warren House is very unlikely to be second highest pub in England. Tan Hill comes in first at 528m or so. One of the stronger claimants to 2nd place is the Cat & Fiddle at approx 510m, on the A537 road above Buxton, Derbyshire. (NB note that appropriately it's a Cheshire Cat, though only by about 50m over the county boundary). I have amended the claim to highest in SW England. Linuxlad 17:15, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Factual geography?
My knowledge of the area is little, but I would have thought a geography section appropriate: Peter Shearan 07:07, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
 * communications railways and roads(perhaps including a note about toll roads?)
 * population figures
 * land use
 * industries past and present

Commons
I've started a commons page but I dont know what template to put on the page. --βjweþþ (talk) 21:38, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup tag
I'm tagging this for cleanup, as the tone doesn't appear quite right for Wikipedia. Sections that need particular attention include the lead and the sections on myths and rivers. The problems should be jump out - if not, I'm happy to provide more detail. SP-KP 23:21, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Happy to do my bit as soon as I have time. There is obviously some POV which can be dealt with and some areas for improvement. Are there any 'best practice' geographical/topographical pages which could illustrate the way to take this forward? I looked at all the other UK National Park pages, and these all seemed inferior to Dartmoor (yet non of these have been tagged for clean-up). JonC

 * I've had a go at cleaning up the introduction and rivers section. Waggers 13:44, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

 * As a best practice reference, Chew Valley Lake has Featured Article status, if that's any help. I don't tend to check quality of related articles when tagging things for cleanup on the basis that a cleanup need is a cleanup need. I'll check the other National Park articles and tag any which I think are also in need of work. SP-KP 18:38, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Kind of looking at the geography thing and the previous comment the article makes no mention of the fact that much of Devon's water comes from the five reservoirs within the National Park. I do know a little about them and would happily help (with this and other aspects of Dartmoor) but my Wiki expertise at present is close to zero Nigel 12:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

 * Take a look at Dartmoor reservoirs. If you know a bit about this, why not update this section, as well as ensuring there are references within Dartmoor and Devon? JonC

 * Thanks Jon - ok I should have look but I guess I feel there should be a link on the Dartmoor page (which at a quick glance I can't see). I'll look at the page some more over the weekend and see if I feel I can contribute anything, I'll certainly look at putting links in, possibly in pages for the towns originally supplied? regards Nigel 09:18, 7 July

Spam?
I've been pointed to discuss the recent edit on this and other national parks pages. In each case a link has been put in to "bedsearcher". At best I don't see it as useful (the link comes up with nothing found!), at worst it is at least a form of spam. Opinions sought thanks. --Nigel 08:04, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

OK in the end I went ahead and revoved the link after others had expressed the same opinion --Nigel 13:09, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Flora and fauna?
Looking at little closer at the Dartmoor page and comparing it to some other National Parks pages it does strike me that this aspect is missing. Other than a list of things I've seen it is really out of my expertise. However I do know that it is a very rich habitat and important in many ways. Anyone interested?

Cheers --Nigel 10:12, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok found the wild life one (should have looked) but nothing on the flora that I can see?? -- Nigel 11:24, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion for page
Hi All (??)

I been looking at this for a while & wonder if the page could be tidier if we created some sub categories - Dartmoor Rivers, Dartmoor Villages and then linked that to the Dartmoor page rather than the current list approach? Could leave the main tors, rivers etc on the Dartmoor page with a "see also" for the rest. It should make the page a little sharper

Obviously comments welcome & thanks --Nigel (Talk) 12:15, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Tone tag removed
I've had nothing to do with the creation of this page. After reading through the entire thing, I feel that the page is not longer in need of clean-up from a tone perspective. Good work to everyone who improved it! InvictaHOG 17:28, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Album cover piccy
I've removed this. It really does not seem really relevant to Dartmoor. I have not seen anything like that kind of wreckage on the moors (I wonder if it is a "created" photo, I can't find evidence for it). -- Herby talk to me 12:44, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

River Dart
From the point of view of their journeys across Dartmoor I am inclined to create pages for both East & West Dart. They are certainly bigger rivers than some of the others mentioned here and their passage across the moors is not really dealt with. Any other views? Cheers -- Herby talk to me 12:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Dartmoor and the military
If you are watching this page this BBC link may be of interest to you cheers -- Herby  talk thyme 13:05, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject
I think it's time there was a Wikiproject:Devon up and running. Anyone interested, come to my talkpage and we'll sort something out. I'm not much good at HTML but if we all put our heads together I'm sure we can get Devon articles the treatment they deserve. Totnesmartin 16:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Neolithic fire and references section
I added a bit of info on the role of anthropogenic fire in the creation of Dartmoor and moors in general, along with a references and notes section. Even though there is only one reference so far, I did it in the "Notes" and "References" method so you can give a full citation in References and then shorter footnotes and even little comments in the Notes section, like I did. I wanted to add the bit about fire because, having read it recently in Pyne's book, I was surprised and intrigued to learn how dramatically human use of fire has changed the landscape of... basically everywhere; back to Neolithic and probably Mesolithic times. But I'm not expert on Dartmoor, or moors at all really, so I hope my edits are not inappropriate or anything! Pfly 20:24, 8 March 2007 (UTC) peter peter peter peter peter —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.143.4.65 (talk) 07:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Ownership percentages
just a moan but the percentages relating to ownership do not add up!

 * Well, we can't have every landowner credited! there are loads of private homes and farms there, obviously. It looks like jus the owners with more than 1% of the land are mentioned, but it's not that clear. I'll just clarify it. Totnesmartin (talk) 15:52, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Problem solved - there was no mention of Common land. Totnesmartin (talk) 16:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Note that an area being common land does not mean it is ownerless; common land is generally owned by one party or another and that may be a private owner, eg an estate or a public body etc, the 'common' status refers simply to certain parties having rights in common over that land eg to graze animals or take firewood. Of course there are also some pieces of common for which there is no known owner, in which case management of them will often default to a local authority. cheers Geopersona (talk) 14:31, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Measurements in Dartmoor article
Most of the measurements in the article are now metric first. I think the only exceptions are references to the Ten Tors Challenge and one to the width of the bogs. I think the width of the bogs could be changed to metric first, but the Ten Tors hike is more of a challenge. Would 56, 72 and 88 (or 89) be acceptable? What do others think? Michael Glass (talk) 15:52, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it's fine, thanks for the work. Ten Tors quotes the distances as you've done. The measurement of the "quakers" is only rough: I should think 4m (12 ft) would be OK. —S MALL  JIM   22:55, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Moorland or mire?
I think it is a mire area (i.e. peat land) rather than a moorland (a hilly heath).--Carnby (talk) 13:13, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I can see it from my window, and looks pretty hilly to me. There's some peat and several bogs, but not enough to call the whole place a mire. The tors aren't indicative of a mire, certainly. Totnesmartin (talk) 14:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Definitely moorland, though there are some areas of mire. Pterre (talk) 09:25, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Yennadon Manor?
According to, which is a neighbourhood/locality in the District of Maple Ridge, it was named for an early settler-cum-postmaster after his grandfather's former residence - "Yennadon Manor . . . a beautiful place on Dartmoor". Anyone familiar with the area know where this is, or which village it's near/in? The family name may not be the same as that of the postmaster, which was Prosse. Is this a notable Great House...or just a house or cottage? I'll be writing a Yennadon article, undisambiguated unless there's an actual placename, or a house/estate worthy of an article (?). "Manor" may be overblown, given experience with other similar names in British Columbia; Miyazaki House in Lillooet was originally named Eyrecourt, after a supposed Eyrecourt Castle in Ireland, which is anything but....it's aruin, so couldn't be teh "ancestral home" of the familiy in question whose house it was (if so a big claim); sorry for the digression, meant by way of illustration: that despite the sources available to me in Canada I always like to check with UK sources/pages to check on what aren't necessarily accurate BC sources....all prone to second-hand accounts and bragging/mythologizing. Be neat if Yennadon turned out to have a notable history/family attached, though....Skookum1 (talk) 04:32, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Oop, maybe asked too soon; I hadn't noticed [a new Yennadon ref on the [[Lillooet River]] page which has a further source for Yennadon than BCGNIS does...still, if anyone knows of anything more, pls let me know; Yennadon, BC is just a semi-rural residential area on the NW side of the municipality in question; no big deal, nowadays it's the name of a school and the local bus route.Skookum1 (talk) 04:47, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * That source is also in relation to the place in BC, though with a different name for the postmaster, "Prowse"; of the two sources I'd trust this one, which is a local history site and well-cited, vs BCGNIS which is second-hand and as noted above sloppy...but still no further clue as to where in "the Devonshire moors" (BCGNIS says Dartmoor, which is how I got here) the house was, or how notable the Prowses (or Prosses?) were. Lots of remittance men among settlers of a certain era in British Columbia, he could have come from standing; or simply be overstating the grandeur of his grand'dad's home...Skookum1 (talk) 04:53, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, seems it was probably Admiral Prowse, in which case it must have been a pretty nice place; is it still standing, then?Skookum1 (talk) 05:08, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Etymology of "tor"
Is this from Latin, or from some older Anglo-Saxon or even Celtic word? Just curious.....Skookum1 (talk) 04:32, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Location map
I've created a location map for Dartmoor, for potential use in related articles. Its far from perfect, and I'm not sure how to integrate into infobox templates (such as infobox mountain) but its a start :) --Nilfanion (talk) 20:56, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I've added map to right to using location map+, as well as a couple points to demonstrate. This should address the comment in the todo list if its populated adquately (Thoughts?)--Nilfanion (talk) 10:57, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

 * Could someone who knows how please place this map into the article? I searched for it since it seemed odd to speak of a park without a map. Nick Beeson (talk) 12:43, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

 * Done - added to the infobox in place of the rather woolly one that was already there. --Simple Boba.k.a. The Spaminator (Talk) 14:44, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Also worth noting that the maps appears automatically if you plug the right data into Infobox mountain. Look at the source on High Willhays for an example. The map parameter needs to be set to "map = United Kingdom Dartmoor", the map_caption parameter needs to be set to something like "map_caption = Location of High Willhays in Dartmoor", then you set lat_d and long_d to the latitude and longitude of the summit. Note that you should remove any existing coord template from within the article as using the map in the infobox automatically displays the coords at the top of the article. There are lots of hills on Dartmoor (see Category:Dartmoor) that don't have infoboxes or maps so if anyone is keen there is a nice job for you.... --Simple Boba.k.a. The Spaminator (Talk) 15:04, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

The restorers and the Dartmoor Exploration Committee
The Hut Circles and Kistvaens section currently states "Many ancient structures, including the hut circles at Grimspound, were reconstructed during the 19th century; most notably by civil engineer and historian Richard Hansford Worth. Some of this work was based more on speculation than archaeological expertise, and has since been criticised for its inaccuracy". This is very misleading as it gives the impression that Worth is to blame for such sloppiness. The section Pre-History already covers this anyway so I think it best to delete it.

Worth specifically insisted on the inclusion of his voice of dissension about the wall at Grimspound and a statement to this effect can be found at the end of the Second Report of the Dartmoor Exploration Committee (T.D.A. Vol. 27 pp.81-92 p.92 1895). In Worth's Dartmoor (p.142-3 1971 edition) he states "I have always held that it was a mistake to rebuild the structure to accord with the Committee's views of what it ought to be especially as no single section through the ruins at any point where the rebuilding was contemplated was made and published. And so I ventured to dissent from the conclusions of my colleagues (emphasis added). Worth was one of the main critics of some of the restorations, notably, Stalldown Stone Row (wrongly passes through a cairn in one section), Ringmoor stone row and cairn circle (imported stones not part of the original monument), Lakehead Hill stone row and massive cist (cist too high above ground and row wrongly curved), Challacombe triple stone row ("an attempt was made to re-erect these in the places in which 'they should of been'. Nothing coherent came of that attempt". Worth p.226). The problem Worth had with these restorations was that they were inaccurate.

Also whilst Worth did take part in restoring the Drizzlecombe menhirs (accurately in the original sockets) he wasn't involved in many of the subsequent restorations. These were mostly done by Sabine Baring-Gould and Robert Burnard of the Dartmoor Exploration Committtee. One of their main motives was to protect the sites which could be legally plundered by road builders. --DartmoorDave (talk) 21:01, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Hut circles
I study historic carpentry but I am not too familiar with pre-historic dwelling types. I see the term hut circles used in a number of articles but no definition of the term. Are they remnants of a particular type of dwelling? Should they have an article or a redirect to a good description? Thanks. Jim Derby (talk) 22:34, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Good question. A hut circle is the visible remains of a Roundhouse (dwelling). See Google Images for pictures. --Bob Re-born (talk) 22:49, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * And there is in fact a (somewhat brief) page hut circle with a link to the roundhouse page referred to above. Geopersona (talk) 06:27, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Geology of Dartmoor National Park
An issue that comes up repeatedly with articles on national parks is whether the core landscape - in this case, the upland massif which is the traditional moor - should be one article, and a separate page 'X National Park' - should be another. In Dartmoor's case there is a redirect from 'Dartmoor National Park' to this page. (Unusually there is also a 'Dartmoor National Park Authority' page in respect of the area - many GB NPs do not have such a page.) The current geology section dwells almost entirely on the upland massif whereas the national park extends beyond that core. I propose therefore, in the absence currently of a separate article on 'Dartmoor National Park' to develop the geology section of this article to encompass all of the territory within the national park boundary. If at some future date a 'Dartmoor National Park' article is developed or perhaps even a 'Geology of Dartmoor' then the material could be transferred. cheers Geopersona (talk) 06:34, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

File:Saddle tor to Hey tor pano.jpg to appear as POTD
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Saddle tor to Hey tor pano.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on May 19, 2015. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2015-05-19. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:43, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

"Dartmoor partnership".
Greetings, it was nice to see an image of Dartmoor looking so spectacular featured on the front page of wikipedia the other day. Anyway, I have never heard of any such organisation as the "Dartmoor partnership" - the official tourism website for the national park is here - but I also found this whilst poking around google search  - which seems to indicate Visit Dartmoor and the Dartmoor Partnership are the same organisation - one is a commercial/public service name, the other name belonging to the more administrative side of things. Should Visit Dartmoor be added instead? --Julius R.S (talk) 17:30, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

The West Country Challenge
Would you like to win up to £250 in Amazon vouchers for participating in The West Country Challenge?

The The West Country Challenge will take place from 8 to 28 August 2016. The idea is to create and improve articles about Bristol, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Dorset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, like this one.

The format will be based on Wales's successful Awaken the Dragon which saw over 1000 article improvements and creations and 65 GAs/FAs. As with the Dragon contest, the focus is more on improving core articles and breathing new life into those older stale articles and stubs which might otherwise not get edited in years. All contributions, including new articles, are welcome though.

Work on any of the items at: or other articles relating to the area.
 * Core articles
 * Missing article hotlist
 * Missing photograph hotlist

There will be sub contests focusing on particular areas:
 * Bristol (Day 1-3)
 * Cornwall and Scilly (Day 4-6)
 * Devon (Day 7-9)
 * Dorset (Day 10-12)
 * Gloucestershire (Day 13-15)
 * Somerset (Day 16-18)
 * Wiltshire (Day 19-21)

To sign up or get more information visit the contest pages at WikiProject England/The West Country Challenge.— Rod talk 16:07, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 10 one external links on Dartmoor. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080908090232/http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/index/learningabout/lab-printableresources/lab-factsheetshome/lab-generalfactsheet.htm to http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/index/learningabout/lab-printableresources/lab-factsheetshome/lab-generalfactsheet.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100823061015/http://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk:80/beast_dart.htm to http://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/beast_dart.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080227004835/http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/print/lab-comm.pdf to http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/print/lab-comm.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090911075542/http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk:80/vi-prow to http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/vi-prow
 * Added tag to http://www.viamichelin.com/viamichelin/gbr/dyn/controller/Datasheet/GBR0001538/41104/Panorama
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090109071805/http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/sheet_3a-b.pdf to http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/sheet_3a-b.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090418182625/http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk:80/index/visiting/vi-enjoyingdartmoor/vi-walkingforall.htm to http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/index/visiting/vi-enjoyingdartmoor/vi-walkingforall.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090714225755/http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk:80/index/visiting/vi-enjoyingdartmoor/vi-climbing.htm to http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/index/visiting/vi-enjoyingdartmoor/vi-climbing.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090717074950/http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk:80/index/visiting/vi-enjoyingdartmoor/vi-horse-riding.htm to http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/index/visiting/vi-enjoyingdartmoor/vi-horse-riding.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090430195345/http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk:80/index/visiting/vi-enjoyingdartmoor/vi-cycling.htm to http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/index/visiting/vi-enjoyingdartmoor/vi-cycling.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090717081405/http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk:80/index/visiting/vi-enjoyingdartmoor/vi-otheractivities.htm to http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/index/visiting/vi-enjoyingdartmoor/vi-otheractivities.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 04:31, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Dartmoor. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20091201085932/http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/index/lookingafter/laf-culturalheritage/laf-archaeology/laf-prehistoricdartmoor.htm to http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/index/lookingafter/laf-culturalheritage/laf-archaeology/laf-prehistoricdartmoor.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090623215828/http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/index/visiting/vi-enjoyingdartmoor/vi-canoeing.htm to http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/index/visiting/vi-enjoyingdartmoor/vi-canoeing.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 03:07, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Dartmoor wildlife
Hi, I found the article Dartmoor wildlife which has some good lists of wildlife but is completely unreferenced. Should I merge it here? Simonfreeman (talk) 02:07, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I have had the same idea. I would like to formally propose that the above article is merged to a section of this one.--NHSavage (talk) 19:09, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Some resources that might help make this a useful section are: http://www.dartmoor.gov.uk/wildlife-and-heritage/wildlife https://www.plantlife.org.uk/uk/nature-reserves-important-plant-areas/important-plant-areas/dartmoor http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/protectedsites/sacselection/sac.asp?EUCode=UK0012929 http://ww2.rspb.org.uk/our-work/rspb-news/news/354171-uks-only-nesting-quotbutcher-birdsquot-successful-on-dartmoor--NHSavage (talk) 19:32, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Also http://www.dartmoor.gov.uk/learning and the book The wildlife of Dartmoor, Norman Baldock and John Walters which is available via Devon Libraries
 * Anyone have any thoughts on how useful it would to use Worth's Dartmoor as a starting point for a section on vegetation ? It's a bit old but I don't think that the vegetation is changing that fast (unlike the bird life for example).--NHSavage (talk) 13:51, 7 May 2018 (UTC) Actually its not that useful.--NHSavage (talk) 17:07, 7 May 2018 (UTC)--NHSavage (talk) 17:07, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree. Worth's Dartmoor was based on research getting on for a hundred years old now. I'd suggest that the best printed source would be Ian Mercer's Dartmoor (as referenced in Dartmoor wildlife). Chapter 4: "Dartmoor Vegetation in the last Millennium". —S MALL  JIM   22:40, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Sadly Devon Libraries don't have a copy of that, it's out of print and the cheapest copy on ABE books is £30...--NHSavage (talk) 18:28, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know if the link will work for you, but this astonishingly long url shows that 6 copies of Dartmoor by Ian Mercer are available for loan from Devon Libraries: https://www.devonlibraries.org.uk/web/arena/results?p_p_id=crDetailWicket_WAR_arenaportlets&p_p_lifecycle=1&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column-1&p_p_col_pos=2&p_p_col_count=4&p_r_p_687834046_facet_queries=&_crDetailWicket_WAR_arenaportlets_back_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.devonlibraries.org.uk%2Fweb%2Farena%2Fsearch%3Fp_p_id%3DsearchResult_WAR_arenaportlets%26p_p_lifecycle%3D1%26p_p_state%3Dnormal%26p_p_mode%3Dview%26p_p_col_id%3Dcolumn-1%26p_p_col_pos%3D2%26p_p_col_count%3D4%26p_r_p_687834046_facet_queries%3D%26p_r_p_687834046_search_item_no%3D0%26p_r_p_687834046_sort_advice%3Dfield%253DRelevance%2526direction%253DDescending%26_searchResult_WAR_arenaportlets_arena_member_id%3D73726821%26_searchResult_WAR_arenaportlets_agency_name%3DAUK267001%26p_r_p_687834046_search_type%3Dsolr%26p_r_p_687834046_search_query%3DorganisationId_index%253AAUK267001%257C1%2BAND%2B%2528author_index%253Amercer%2BOR%2Bcontributor_index%253Amercer%2529%2BAND%2B%2528title_index%253Adartmoor%2BOR%2BtitleMain_index%253Adartmoor%2529&p_r_p_687834046_search_item_no=0&p_r_p_687834046_sort_advice=field%3DRelevance%26direction%3DDescending&p_r_p_687834046_arena_member_id=73726821&p_r_p_687834046_search_item_id=0007184999&p_r_p_687834046_agency_name=AUK267001&p_r_p_687834046_search_type=solr&p_r_p_687834046_search_query=organisationId_index%3AAUK267001%7C1+AND+%28author_index%3Amercer+OR+contributor_index%3Amercer%29+AND+%28title_index%3Adartmoor+OR+titleMain_index%3Adartmoor%29

 * I would have offered to scan the chapter for you (for research purposes), but it's 60 pages! —S MALL  JIM   19:03, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

 * Odd - I searched for it on the catalogue - I must have fouled up somehow. Thanks.--NHSavage (talk) 19:38, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Just to say, I have now made a start on a section in this article on Dartmoor wildlife. It is brief but fully referenced. I have two questions now. Do people think that this would be best organised by habitats, or by groups of flora and fauna (e.g. birds, mammals etc). Secondly, the stand alone page had a lot on the livestock e.g. sheep and ponies. Do these belong here on in their own section?--NHSavage (talk) 17:07, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Highest upland in southern Britain ??
The statement that Dartmoor is the highest upland in southern Britain is dubious. I suppose it depends what you mean by "southern", which is not defined. Dartmoor may be the highest in southern England, but the highest part in the southern half of Britain is in Wales. --Martin Wyatt (talk) 18:26, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I've reworded the first couple of sentences of Dartmoor to avoid the statement. —S MALL  JIM   19:00, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Age of granite
The article states 309 million years ago and quotes a reference from 1982 for that which I don't have access to. The article on the Cornubian batholith, of which the Dartmoor granite pluton is a major part, gives an age of around 280 million years though goes on to discuss a wider range of dates, all younger than the 308mya. In their authoritative tome, 'The Geology of England and Wales', Brenchley & Rawson (GeolSoc, 2006) after some discussion, also go with 280. Geopersona (talk) 14:15, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
 * As an aside, are we sure this is the largest area of granite in Britain? And yes, I know we go with references in Wikipedia and some do say that, but I wonder if they're correct, insofar as the Rannoch Moor granite pluton in the central Scottish Highlands is contiguous with other named granites to its west which on the face of it appear collectively to extend over a greater area than does the Dartmoor pluton. It may come down to semantics of course. Geopersona (talk) 14:23, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Dartmoor


text:
Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri (c. May 1265 – September 14, 1321), most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and widely known and often referred to in English mononymously as Dante, was an Italian poet, writer, and philosopher. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa (modern Italian: Commedia) and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language.

Dante is known for establishing the use of the vernacular in literature at a time when most poetry was written in Latin, which was accessible only to educated readers. His De vulgari eloquentia (On Eloquence in the Vernacular) was one of the first scholarly defenses of the vernacular. His use of the Florentine dialect for works such as The New Life (1295) and Divine Comedy helped establish the modern-day standardized Italian language. By writing his poem in the Italian vernacular rather than in Latin, Dante influenced the course of literary development, making Italian the literary language in western Europe for several centuries. His work set a precedent that important Italian writers such as Petrarch and Boccaccio would later follow.

Dante was instrumental in establishing the literature of Italy, and is considered to be among the country's national poets and the Western world's greatest literary icons. His depictions of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven provided inspiration for the larger body of Western art and literature. He influenced English writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer, John Milton, and Alfred Tennyson, among many others. In addition, the first use of the interlocking three-line rhyme scheme, or the terza rima, is attributed to him. He is described as the "father" of the Italian language, and in Italy he is often referred to as il Sommo Poeta ("the Supreme Poet"). Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also called the tre corone ("three crowns") of Italian literature.

Early life
Dante was born in Florence, Republic of Florence, in what is now Italy. The exact date of his birth is unknown, although it is believed to be around May 1265. This can be deduced from autobiographic allusions in the Divine Comedy. Its first section, the Inferno, begins, "Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita" ("Midway upon the journey of our life"), implying that Dante was around 35 years old, since the average lifespan according to the Bible (Psalm 89:10, Vulgate) is 70 years; and since his imaginary travel to the netherworld took place in 1300, he was most probably born around 1265. Some verses of the Paradiso section of the Divine Comedy also provide a possible clue that he was born under the sign of Gemini: "As I revolved with the eternal twins, I saw revealed, from hills to river outlets, the threshing-floor that makes us so ferocious" (XXII 151–154). In 1265, the sun was in Gemini between approximately May 11 and June 11 (Julian calendar).

Dante claimed that his family descended from the ancient Romans (Inferno, XV, 76), but the earliest relative he could mention by name was his great-great grandfather Cacciaguida degli Elisei (Paradiso, XV, 135), born no earlier than about 1100. Dante's father was Alighiero di Bellincione, a businessman and moneylender, and Dante's mother was Bella, probably a member of the Abati family, a noble Florentine family. She died when Dante was not yet ten years old. Alighiero soon married again, to Lapa di Chiarissimo Cialuffi. It is uncertain whether he really married her, since widowers were socially limited in such matters, but she definitely bore him two children, Dante's half-brother Francesco and half-sister Tana (Gaetana).

During Dante's time, most Northern-Italian city states were split into two political factions: the Guelphs, who supported the papacy, and the Ghibellines, who supported the Holy Roman Empire. Dante's family was loyal to the Guelphs. The Ghibellines took over Florence at the Battle of Montaperti in 1260, forcing out many of the Guelphs. Although Dante’s family were Guelphs, they suffered no reprisals after the battle, probably because of Alighiero’s low public standing. The Guelphs later fought the Ghibellines again in 1266 at the Battle of Benevento, retaking Florence from the Ghibellines.

Dante said he first met Beatrice Portinari, daughter of Folco Portinari, when he was nine (she was eight), and he claimed to have fallen in love with her "at first sight", apparently without even talking with her. When he was 12, however, he was promised in marriage to Gemma di Manetto Donati, daughter of Manetto Donati, member of the powerful Donati family. Contracting marriages for children at such an early age was quite common and involved a formal ceremony, including contracts signed before a notary. Dante claimed to have seen Beatrice again frequently after he turned 18, exchanging greetings with her in the streets of Florence, though he never knew her well.

Years after his marriage to Gemma, he claims to have met Beatrice again; he wrote several sonnets to Beatrice but never mentioned Gemma in any of his poems. He refers to other Donati relations, notably Forese and Piccarda, in his Divine Comedy. The exact date of his marriage is not known; the only certain information is that, before his exile in 1301, he had fathered three children with Gemma (Pietro, Jacopo and Antonia).

Dante fought with the Guelph cavalry at the Battle of Campaldino (June 11, 1289). This victory brought about a reformation of the Florentine constitution. To take part in public life, one had to enroll in one of the city's many commercial or artisan guilds, so Dante entered the Physicians' and Apothecaries' Guild. His name is occasionally recorded as speaking or voting in the councils of the republic. Many minutes from such meetings between 1298–1300 were lost, so the extent of his participation is uncertain.

Education and poetry

Not much is known about Dante's education; he presumably studied at home or in a chapter school attached to a church or monastery in Florence. It is known that he studied Tuscan poetry and that he admired the compositions of the Bolognese poet Guido Guinizelli—in Purgatorio XXVI he characterized him as his "father"—at a time when the Sicilian School (Scuola poetica Siciliana), a cultural group from Sicily, was becoming known in Tuscany. He also discovered the Provençal poetry of the troubadours, such as Arnaut Daniel, and the Latin writers of classical antiquity, including Cicero, Ovid and especially Virgil.

Dante's interactions with Beatrice set an example of so-called courtly love, a phenomenon developed in French and Provençal poetry of prior centuries. Dante's experience of such love was typical, but his expression of it was unique. It was in the name of this love that Dante left his imprint on the dolce stil nuovo ("sweet new style", a term that Dante himself coined), and he would join other contemporary poets and writers in exploring never-before-emphasized aspects of love (Amore). Love for Beatrice (as Petrarch would express for Laura somewhat differently) would be his reason for writing poetry and for living, together with political passions. In many of his poems, she is depicted as semi-divine, watching over him constantly and providing spiritual instruction, sometimes harshly. When Beatrice died in 1290, Dante sought refuge in Latin literature. The Convivio chronicles his having read Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae and Cicero's De Amicitia.

He next dedicated himself to philosophical studies at religious schools like the Dominican one in Santa Maria Novella. He took part in the disputes that the two principal mendicant orders (Franciscan and Dominican) publicly or indirectly held in Florence, the former explaining the doctrines of the mystics and of St. Bonaventure, the latter expounding on the theories of St. Thomas Aquinas.

At around the age of 18, Dante met Guido Cavalcanti, Lapo Gianni, Cino da Pistoia and, soon after, Brunetto Latini; together they became the leaders of the dolce stil nuovo. Brunetto later received special mention in the Divine Comedy (Inferno, XV, 28) for what he had taught Dante: Nor speaking less on that account I go With Ser Brunetto, and I ask who are his most known and most eminent companions. Some fifty poetical commentaries by Dante are known (the so-called Rime, rhymes), others being included in the later Vita Nuova and Convivio. Other studies are reported, or deduced from Vita Nuova or the Comedy, regarding painting and music.

Florence and politics
Dante, like most Florentines of his day, was embroiled in the Guelph–Ghibelline conflict. He fought in the Battle of Campaldino (June 11, 1289), with the Florentine Guelphs against Arezzo Ghibellines; he fought as a feditore, responsible for the first attack. To further his political career, he obtained admission to the Guild of Physicians and Apothecaries around 1295. He likely joined the guild due to association between philosophy and medicine, but also may have joined as apothecaries were also booksellers. His guild membership allowed him to hold public office in Florence. As a politician, he held various offices over some years in a city rife with political unrest.

After defeating the Ghibellines, the Guelphs divided into two factions: the White Guelphs (Guelfi Bianchi)—Dante's party, led by Vieri dei Cerchi—and the Black Guelphs (Guelfi Neri), led by Corso Donati. Although the split was along family lines at first, ideological differences arose based on opposing views of the papal role in Florentine affairs. The Blacks supported the Pope and the Whites wanted more freedom from Rome. The Whites took power first and expelled the Blacks. In response, Pope Boniface VIII planned a military occupation of Florence. In 1301, Charles of Valois, brother of King Philip IV of France, was expected to visit Florence because the Pope had appointed him as peacemaker for Tuscany. But the city's government had treated the Pope's ambassadors badly a few weeks before, seeking independence from papal influence. It was believed Charles had received other unofficial instructions, so the council sent a delegation that included Dante to Rome to persuade the Pope not to send Charles to Florence.

Exile from Florence

Pope Boniface quickly dismissed the other delegates and asked Dante alone to remain in Rome. At the same time (November 1, 1301), Charles of Valois entered Florence with the Black Guelphs, who in the next six days destroyed much of the city and killed many of their enemies. A new Black Guelph government was installed, and Cante dei Gabrielli da Gubbio was appointed podestà of the city. In March 1302, Dante, a White Guelph by affiliation, along with the Gherardini family, was condemned to exile for two years and ordered to pay a large fine. Dante was accused of corruption and financial wrongdoing by the Black Guelphs for the time that Dante was serving as city prior (Florence's highest position) for two months in 1300. The poet was still in Rome in 1302, as the Pope, who had backed the Black Guelphs, had "suggested" that Dante stay there. Florence under the Black Guelphs, therefore, considered Dante an absconder.

Dante did not pay the fine, in part because he believed he was not guilty and in part because all his assets in Florence had been seized by the Black Guelphs. He was condemned to perpetual exile; if he had returned to Florence without paying the fine, he could have been burned at the stake. (In June 2008, nearly seven centuries after his death, the city council of Florence passed a motion rescinding Dante's sentence.) In 1306–07, Dante was a guest of Moroello Malaspina in the region of Lunigiana.

Dante took part in several attempts by the White Guelphs to regain power, but these failed due to treachery. Bitter at the treatment he received from his enemies, he grew disgusted with the infighting and ineffectiveness of his former allies and vowed to become a party of one. He went to Verona as a guest of Bartolomeo I della Scala, then moved to Sarzana in Liguria. Later he is supposed to have lived in Lucca with a woman named Gentucca. She apparently made his stay comfortable (and he later gratefully mentioned her in Purgatorio, XXIV, 37). Some speculative sources claim he visited Paris between 1308 and 1310, and other sources even less trustworthy say he went to Oxford: these claims, first made in Boccaccio's book on Dante several decades after his death, seem inspired by readers who were impressed with the poet's wide learning and erudition. Evidently, Dante's command of philosophy and his literary interests deepened in exile and when he was no longer busy with the day-to-day business of Florentine domestic politics, and this is evidenced in his prose writings in this period. There is no real evidence that he ever left Italy. Dante's Immensa Dei dilectione testante to Henry VII of Luxembourg confirms his residence "beneath the springs of Arno, near Tuscany" in April 1311.

In 1310, Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg marched into Italy at the head of 5,000 troops. Dante saw in him a new Charlemagne who would restore the office of the Holy Roman Emperor to its former glory and also retake Florence from the Black Guelphs. He wrote to Henry and several Italian princes, demanding that they destroy the Black Guelphs. Mixing religion and private concerns in his writings, he invoked the worst anger of God against his city and suggested several particular targets, who were also his personal enemies. It was during this time that he wrote De Monarchia, proposing a universal monarchy under Henry VII.

At some point during his exile, he conceived of the Comedy, but the date is uncertain. The work is much more assured and on a larger scale than anything he had written in Florence; it is likely he would have undertaken such a work only after he realized his political ambitions, which had been central to him up to his banishment, had been halted for some time, possibly forever. It is also noticeable that Beatrice has returned to his imagination with renewed force and with a wider meaning than in the Vita Nuova; in Convivio (written c. 1304–07) he had declared that the memory of this youthful romance belonged to the past.

An early indication that the poem was underway is a notice by Francesco da Barberino, tucked into his Documenti d'Amore (Lessons of Love), probably written in 1314 or early 1315. Francesco notes that Dante followed the Aeneid in a poem called "Comedy" and that the setting of this poem (or part of it) was the underworld; i.e., hell. The brief note gives no incontestable indication that Barberino had seen or read even the Inferno, or that this part had been published at the time, but it indicates composition was well underway and that the sketching of the poem might have begun some years before. (It has been suggested that a knowledge of Dante's work also underlies some of the illuminations in Francesco da Barberino's earlier Officiolum [c. 1305–08], a manuscript that came to light in 2003. ) It is known that the Inferno had been published by 1317; this is established by quoted lines interspersed in the margins of contemporary dated records from Bologna, but there is no certainty as to whether the three parts of the poem were each published in full or, rather, a few cantos at a time. Paradiso was likely finished before he died, but it may have been published posthumously.

In 1312, Henry assaulted Florence and defeated the Black Guelphs, but there is no evidence that Dante was involved. Some say he refused to participate in the attack on his city by a foreigner; others suggest that he had become unpopular with the White Guelphs, too, and that any trace of his passage had carefully been removed. Henry VII died (from a fever) in 1313 and with him any hope for Dante to see Florence again. He returned to Verona, where Cangrande I della Scala allowed him to live in certain security and, presumably, in a fair degree of prosperity. Cangrande was admitted to Dante's Paradise (Paradiso, XVII, 76).

During the period of his exile, Dante corresponded with Dominican theologian Fr. Nicholas Brunacci OP [1240–1322], who had been a student of Thomas Aquinas at the Santa Sabina studium in Rome, later at Paris, and of Albert the Great at the Cologne studium. Brunacci became lector at the Santa Sabina studium, forerunner of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and later served in the papal curia.

In 1315, Florence was forced by Uguccione della Faggiuola (the military officer controlling the town) to grant an amnesty to those in exile, including Dante. But for this, Florence required public penance in addition to payment of a high fine. Dante refused, preferring to remain in exile. When Uguccione defeated Florence, Dante's death sentence was commuted to house arrest, on condition that he go to Florence to swear he would never enter the town again. He refused to go, and his death sentence was confirmed and extended to his sons. Despite this, he still hoped late in life that he might be invited back to Florence on honorable terms, particularly in praise of his poetry.

Death and burial
Dante's final days were spent in Ravenna, where he had been invited to stay in the city in 1318 by its prince, Guido II da Polenta. Dante died in Ravenna on September 14, 1321, aged about 56, of quartan malaria contracted while returning from a diplomatic mission to the Republic of Venice. He was attended by his three children, and possibly by Gemma Donati, and by friends and admirers he had in the city. He was buried in Ravenna at the Church of San Pier Maggiore (later called Basilica di San Francesco). Bernardo Bembo, praetor of Venice, erected a tomb for him in 1483.

On the grave, a verse of Bernardo Canaccio, a friend of Dante, is dedicated to Florence:

In 1329, Bertrand du Pouget, Cardinal and nephew of Pope John XXII, classified Dante's Monarchia as heretical and sought to have his bones burned at the stake. Ostasio I da Polenta and Pino della Tosa, allies of Pouget, interceded to prevent the destruction of Dante's remains.

Florence eventually came to regret having exiled Dante. The city made repeated requests for the return of his remains. The custodians of the body in Ravenna refused, at one point going so far as to conceal the bones in a false wall of the monastery. Florence built a tomb for Dante in 1829, in the Basilica of Santa Croce. That tomb has been empty ever since, with Dante's body remaining in Ravenna. The front of his tomb in Florence reads Onorate l'altissimo poeta — which roughly translates as "Honor the most exalted poet" and is a quote from the fourth canto of the Inferno.

In 1945, the fascist government discussed bringing Dante's remains to the Valtellina Redoubt, the Alpine valley in which the regime intended to make its last stand against the Allies. The case was made that "the greatest symbol of Italianness" should be present at fascism's "heroic" end, but ultimately, no action was taken.

A copy of Dante's so-called death mask has been displayed since 1911 in the Palazzo Vecchio; scholars today believe it is not a true death mask and was probably carved in 1483, perhaps by Pietro and Tullio Lombardo.

Legacy

The first formal biography of Dante was the Vita di Dante (also known as Trattatello in laude di Dante), written after 1348 by Giovanni Boccaccio. Although several statements and episodes of it have been deemed unreliable on the basis of modern research, an earlier account of Dante's life and works had been included in the Nuova Cronica of the Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani.

Some 16th-century English Protestants, such as John Bale and John Foxe, argued that Dante was a proto-Protestant because of his opposition to the pope.

The 19th century saw a "Dante revival", a product of the medieval revival, which was itself an important aspect of Romanticism. Thomas Carlyle profiled him in "The Hero as Poet", the third lecture in On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History (1841): "He is world-great not because he is worldwide, but because he is world-deep. . . . Dante is the spokesman of the Middle Ages; the Thought they lived by stands here, in everlasting music." Leigh Hunt, Henry Francis Cary and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow were among Dante's translators of the era.

Italy's first dreadnought battleship was completed in 1913 and named Dante Alighieri in honor of him.

On April 30, 1921, in honor of the 600th anniversary of Dante's death, Pope Benedict XV promulgated an encyclical named In praeclara summorum, naming Dante as one "of the many celebrated geniuses of whom the Catholic faith can boast" and the "pride and glory of humanity". On December 7, 1965, Pope Paul VI promulgated the Latin motu proprio titled Altissimi cantus, which was dedicated to Dante's figure and poetry. In that year, the pope also donated a golden iron Greek Cross to Dante's burial site in Ravenna, in occasion of the 700th anniversary of his birth. The same cross was blessed by Pope Francis in October 2020.

In 2007, a reconstruction of Dante's face was undertaken in a collaborative project. Artists from the University of Pisa and forensic engineers at the University of Bologna at Forlì constructed the model, portraying Dante's features as somewhat different from what was once thought.

In 2008, the Municipality of Florence officially apologized for expelling Dante 700 years earlier. In May 2021, a symbolic re-trial was held virtually in Florence to posthumously clear his name.

A celebration was held in 2015 at Italy's Senate of the Republic for the 750th anniversary of Dante's birth. It included a commemoration from Pope Francis, who also issued the apostolic letter Cando lucis aeternae in honor of the anniversary.

Overview
Most of Dante's literary work was composed after his exile in 1301. La Vita Nuova ("The New Life") is the only major work that predates it; it is a collection of lyric poems (sonnets and songs) with commentary in prose, ostensibly intended to be circulated in manuscript form, as was customary for such poems. It also contains, or constructs, the story of his love for Beatrice Portinari, who later served as the ultimate symbol of salvation in the Comedy, a function already indicated in the final pages of the Vita Nuova. The work contains many of Dante's love poems in Tuscan, which was not unprecedented; the vernacular had been regularly used for lyric works before, during all the thirteenth century. However, Dante's commentary on his own work is also in the vernacular—both in the Vita Nuova and in the Convivio—instead of the Latin that was almost universally used.

The Divine Comedy describes Dante's journey through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Paradise (Paradiso); he is first guided by the Roman poet Virgil and then by Beatrice. Of the books, Purgatorio is arguably the most lyrical of the three, referring to more contemporary poets and artists than Inferno; Paradiso is the most heavily theological, and the one in which, many scholars have argued, the Divine Comedy most beautiful and mystic passages appear.

With its seriousness of purpose, its literary stature and the range—both stylistic and thematic—of its content, the Comedy soon became a cornerstone in the evolution of Italian as an established literary language. Dante was more aware than most early Italian writers of the variety of Italian dialects and of the need to create a literature and a unified literary language beyond the limits of Latin writing at the time; in that sense, he is a forerunner of the Renaissance, with its effort to create vernacular literature in competition with earlier classical writers. Dante's in-depth knowledge (within the limits of his time) of Roman antiquity, and his evident admiration for some aspects of pagan Rome, also point forward to the 15th century. He wrote the Comedy in a language he called "Italian", in some sense an amalgamated literary language predominantly based on the regional dialect of Tuscany, but with some elements of Latin and other regional dialects. He deliberately aimed to reach a readership throughout Italy including laymen, clergymen and other poets. By creating a poem of epic structure and philosophic purpose, he established that the Italian language was suitable for the highest sort of expression. In French, Italian is sometimes nicknamed la langue de Dante. Publishing in the vernacular language marked Dante as one of the first in Roman Catholic Western Europe (among others such as Geoffrey Chaucer and Giovanni Boccaccio) to break free from standards of publishing in only Latin (the language of liturgy, history and scholarship in general, but often also of lyric poetry). This break set a precedent and allowed more literature to be published for a wider audience, setting the stage for greater levels of literacy in the future. However, unlike Boccaccio, Milton or Ariosto, Dante did not really become an author read across Europe until the Romantic era. To the Romantics, Dante, like Homer and Shakespeare, was a prime example of the "original genius" who set his own rules, created persons of overpowering stature and depth, and went beyond any imitation of the patterns of earlier masters; and who, in turn, could not truly be imitated. Throughout the 19th century, Dante's reputation grew and solidified; and by 1865, the 600th anniversary of his birth, he had become established as one of the greatest literary icons of the Western world.

New readers often wonder how such a serious work may be called a "comedy". In the classical sense the word comedy refers to works that reflect belief in an ordered universe, in which events tend toward not only a happy or amusing ending but one influenced by a Providential will that orders all things to an ultimate good. By this meaning of the word, as Dante himself allegedly wrote in a letter to Cangrande I della Scala, the progression of the pilgrimage from Hell to Paradise is the paradigmatic expression of comedy, since the work begins with the pilgrim's moral confusion and ends with the vision of God.

A number of other works are credited to Dante. Convivio ("The Banquet") is a collection of his longest poems with an (unfinished) allegorical commentary. Monarchia ("Monarchy") is a summary treatise of political philosophy in Latin which was condemned and burned after Dante's death by the Papal Legate Bertrando del Poggetto; it argues for the necessity of a universal or global monarchy to establish universal peace in this life, and this monarchy's relationship to the Roman Catholic Church as guide to eternal peace. De vulgari eloquentia ("On the Eloquence in the Vernacular") is a treatise on vernacular literature, partly inspired by the Razos de trobar of Raimon Vidal de Bezaudun. Quaestio de aqua et terra ("A Question of the Water and of the Land") is a theological work discussing the arrangement of Earth's dry land and ocean. The Eclogues are two poems addressed to the poet Giovanni del Virgilio. Dante is also sometimes credited with writing Il Fiore ("The Flower"), a series of sonnets summarizing Le Roman de la Rose, and Detto d'Amore ("Tale of Love"), a short narrative poem also based on Le Roman de la Rose. These would be the earliest, and most novice, of his known works. Le Rime is a posthumous collection of miscellaneous poems.

List of works
The major works of Dante's are the following.
 * Il Fiore and Detto d'Amore ("The Flower" and "Tale of Love", 1283–87)
 * La Vita Nuova ("The New Life", 1294)
 * De vulgari eloquentia ("On the Eloquence in the Vernacular", 1302–05)
 * Convivio ("The Banquet", 1307)
 * Monarchia ("Monarchy", 1313)
 * Divina Commedia ("Divine Comedy", 1320)
 * Eclogues (1320)
 * Quaestio de aqua et terra ("A Question of the Water and of the Land", 1320)
 * Le Rime ("The Rhymes")

Collections
Dante's works reside in cultural institutions across the world. Many items have been digitized or are available for public consultation.

 * Casa di Dante (Florence, Italy) opened in Dante's residence in 1965 and was refurbished in 2020.
 * Princeton University Library (New Jersey, USA) holds 160 volumes of Dante's works and books about his life, including two 15th century editions of the Divine Comedy.
 * University College London Special Collections (London, UK) holds c.3000 volumes of material by and about Dante, including 36 editions of the Divine Comedy. The collection was bequeathed to the University by scholar Henry Clark Barlow in 1876.
 * The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Yale University Library, Connecticut, USA) holds a manuscript edition of the Divine Comedy (c.1385 - 1400).

title: Dante Alighieri


text:
Dennis the Menace

Dennis the Menace may refer to either of two comic strip characters that both appeared in March 1951, one in the UK and one in the US.

American character

 * Dennis the Menace (U.S. comics), a daily US syndicated newspaper comic strip since March 12, 1951
 * Various television and film adaptations of the comic strip:
 * Dennis the Menace (1959 TV series), a CBS network live action television show
 * Dennis the Menace (1986 TV series), an animated TV series
 * All-New Dennis the Menace, a 1993 animated television series
 * Dennis the Menace (1993 film), a live-action film released in 1993
 * Dennis the Menace (video game), based on the 1993 film
 * Dennis the Menace Strikes Again, a 1998 direct-to-video sequel of the 1993 film

British character

 * Dennis the Menace is the original title of a British comic strip, written and published in Dundee, which first appeared in The Beano on 12 March 1951 and became the longest-running strip in the magazine in 2004;
 * Various television adaptations of the comic strip:
 * Dennis the Menace and Gnasher (1996 TV series) is an animated television series based on the Beano comic strip, known internationally as Dennis And Gnasher.
 * Dennis the Menace and Gnasher (2009 TV series) was released on September 7, 2009.
 * Dennis & Gnasher: Unleashed! (2017 TV series) is the latest animated CGI series, first broadcast in November 2017.

title: Dennis the Menace


text:
Talk:Dennis the Menace

/whacking page
The useful content of the /whacking page (as opposed to the tongue-in-cheek content) has been removed to the main page.

Please, we musn't let Wikipedia slide into an Everything2-style humor project. It isn't one. It's an encyclopedia project. --LMS

I put the whacking page in there as an explanatory note. From my reading of US literature it is my understanding that "whacking" means something entirely different in the US than it does in the UK. For UK readers of course it just clutters the text who already know what it means. Phil Lord

That makes sense to me. --LMS

The fact that this is a "Britishism" just turned on a light for me. In The Beatles song, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," there is a background commentary vocal line that goes, "in his life there's something lacking. What he needs is a damn good whacking." This, in American English would simply refer to a good old-fashioned spanking. Though the implication of the line is not really changed by that understanding, it is interesting to note that a common and specific term is being used, not just something colorful to rhyme with "lacking." I am, no doubt, the only person on the planet who cares about this... -- Isn't the line from "Piggies" instead?

It is from "Piggies," courtesy George Harrison, inspiration to colorful figures like Charles Manson. :-) --KQ
 * Whacking refers to corporal punishment, perhaps spanking, in the Piggies song. I am not sure what a /whacking page is in Wikipedia terms. Otherwise, typically, Whacking is used as an adverb in UK slang to imply a large amount of to another adverb. It also can be synonymous with wanking. Group29 (talk) 18:38, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Dennis the Menace vs Dennis and Gnasher
Realistically, the UK version was called Dennis the Manace (UK), not Dennis and Gnasher (although it may have been later renamed) and debued in 1951 a few days after Ketchum's strip. There really is no connection between the two and the UK version should probably be on it's own page.
 * In the 1990's, it was also sometimes called Dennis the Menace and Gnasher boffy_b 20:40, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I have noticed that the first film and TV series based on the US character was originally titled Dennis in the UK to avoid confusion with the Beano character but in the mid 2000s I noticed the title Dennis the Menace on the DVD release of the US TV series. On Amazon Prime Video the first film is now released as Dennis the Menace and the title is visible from the UK although I am not aware of any trademark disputes over this. This might be because the Beano comic strip is usually published nowadays as Dennis the Menace and Gnasher. Tk420 (talk) 19:46, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Publication dates
The debate of who was first, based upon publication dates, does not belong in the disambiguation page. Group29 (talk) 18:38, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

title: Talk:Dennis the Menace