Bench Tor

• Parish: Holne
• Grid reference: about SX 694 716 (the tor is a long ridge, so published references differ by a few hundred metres)
• Rock: granite
• Access: open access land, from the car park beside Venford Reservoir dam

Bench Tor is a series of slabbed granite outcrops, about half a mile long, on a spur that juts into the gorge of the River Dart. The ground drops about 150 metres to the river below, through an oak wood that was coppiced for bark, firewood and charcoal. Mel Tor stands across the gorge, with Sharrah Pool at the bottom.

William Crossing (Guide to Dartmoor, 1914, vol. 1, p. 187) says several piles make up the tor: two were named North Bench Tor and South Bench Tor in an old deed, and one is called the Eagle Rock. Wikipedia's list of Dartmoor tors gives it as "Bench Tor or Benjy Tor". The British Mountaineering Council records 26 climbing routes on the crag. A rock shelter on the tor, at the contact between tor granite and a sheet of microgranite, is described in Simmons's Dartmoor Essays (p. 119).

The usual way here is from the car park on the east side of Venford Reservoir dam, then north-east on the path to the tor.

Sources: W. Crossing, Guide to Dartmoor (1914) vol. 1 p. 187; Simmons, Dartmoor Essays p. 119; Wikipedia, List of Dartmoor tors and hills; British Mountaineering Council crag record; Walking Englishman, Venford walk.