The moor's old customs and traditions: pony drifts, swaling, beating the bounds, wassailing and the ceremonies of its old towns.
Tavistock
Tavistock's Goose Fair, held in the town centre on the second Wednesday of October. It began as a Michaelmas fair in the early 12th century and is run by Tavistock Town Council.
Okehampton
Each spring teams of six young people walk between ten Dartmoor tors, carrying everything they need, in a navigation challenge run by the British Army since 1960.
Holne
Holne's ram feast was a May Day custom in which a ram was caught on the moor, tied to a granite pillar, roasted whole and shared out; it became the Holne Revel and is now a village fete.
Devon's tinners met in the open air at Crockern Tor, in a stannary parliament of 96 jurats, until the last convocation in 1786.
Venville was the right of farmers in the parishes around the old Forest of Dartmoor to graze the central moor by day, in return for a small payment to the Duchy of Cornwall.
Wassailing is the winter custom of visiting an orchard to sing to the apple trees, make a noise to drive off evil spirits, and bless them for a good crop.
On Dartmoor the whortleberry is a 'hurt'. For centuries families went to the moor each summer to pick them for pies and for sale at market.
Widecombe-in-the-Moor
Widecombe Fair is run entirely by volunteers to raise money for local good causes, in a sheltered valley on the east side of Dartmoor, on the second Tuesday of September. It shares its name with the folk song that features Uncle Tom Cobley.
Ashburton
Ashburton's manor court, the Court Leet, still meets each year to appoint the Portreeve, the Ale Tasters and the Bread Weighers, a custom very few towns keep.
