← Browse Other Heritage Sites · Browse the directory
Bowerman's Nose is a natural granite outcrop on Hayne Down, near Manaton on the eastern side of Dartmoor. It stands about 30 feet high, in layered granite blocks that have weathered into a human-like profile.
The story of Bowerman, a hunter turned to stone by a witch, is younger than it looks. The legend has its own listing. The sources found before 1939 do not mention a witch. Noel Thomas Carrington (1826) called the rock an "idol" and linked it to Druids. Henry Besley's 1870 guidebook gave the name to a Norman-era man called Bowerman. Hilderic Friend (1898) suggested a Celtic root meaning "great stone", and Sabine Baring-Gould (1900) dismissed the Druid idea.
The witch, the hare and the turning to stone appear in A. G. Skinner's Tales of the Tors (1939), and a 1983 visitor booklet by John Pegg helped spread that version. The full trail of sources is in Glavind Strachan's article below.
Suggest an edit to this listing
Contact us if you have information about this listing
Explore the area
Go deeper with Dartefacts
Dartefacts is a database of Dartmoor sites with far more close-up detail than we can show here, and it is the best place to go deeper. Dartefacts is free to use, and nobody has to pay to look things up. If you want more, a yearly subscription adds 10-figure grid references, map zoom down to 1:25,000 and lists to tick off the places you have visited, and it helps keep the site going. We would encourage you to subscribe.
Thoughts
Be the first to share a thought about Bowerman's Nose.
Share a thoughtKnow another Dartmoor place, tor or landmark we should include? Suggest a listing, it is free.
Suggest a listing