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Tors & Landmarks

Fox Tor (Fox Tor Mires)

Grid ref: SX 6260 6980

Main image: Photo: Own Herby talk thyme, Wikimedia Commons

  • Parish: Dartmoor Forest
  • Height: 438 m
  • Grid reference: SX 6261 6981
  • Rock: Granite
  • Also called: Fox Tor Mires, The Mammoth Skull (one outcrop)

Fox Tor is a granite tor of 438 m on the southern moor, with three main outcrops. The southern pile holds a fallen summit rock with two large rock basins that look like sunken eyes, the larger about three feet across. The two northern piles include one with a shallow basin, and the summit has the remains of an old letterbox site. Eric Hemery called the two northern piles Eden Phillpotts's twin turrets.

To the south lies Fox Tor Mires, a desolate and featureless morass. Beyond the newtake wall, in the Sand Parks, stands Childe's Tomb, where, according to Henry Carrington (1834), John Childe of Plymstock died of exposure after killing his horse for warmth. Whiteworks tin mine lies to the north.

Fox Tor on the Tavy at Mary Tavy is a different place: a low riverside crag of 207 m on private land.

This is a location on Dartmoor that has a namesake. Read more about this: Dartmoor Places With the Same Name

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