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The Haytor Quarries are a group of five disused granite workings on the eastern side of Dartmoor: Haytor (Main), Holwell, Rubble Heap, Harrow Barrow (Emsworthy East) and Western (Emsworthy West). They are distinct both from Haytor Rocks, the tor itself, and from the Haytor Granite Tramway that carried their stone away. Quarrying began around 1820 under George Templer, who also built the tramway and the Stover Canal to move the granite to the coast.
Stone cut here supplied the new London Bridge, completed in 1831, travelling down the tramway and along the Stover Canal to Teignmouth for shipment. The quarries fell largely idle between 1841 and 1851, had a brief revival through the 1850s, and closed for good in 1858 as cheaper Cornish granite took the market. What remains today includes the flooded main pit, with surviving quarrying winding gear still visible at its edge.
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Photograph by Glavind Strachan Photography“The fogs are most deceptive and very tricky. They come on unexpectedly, and change the whole aspect of the surroundings. They magnify all things ; hills comparatively small appear as high mountains, and a small bird like a snipe looks as big as a pigeon.”
Also on Our DartmoorSettlement remains around Trowlesworthy Warren House — Five scheduled monuments east of Trowlesworthy Warren House: two hut circle settlements, an enclosure, a cairn with a cist and a V-shaped gully.
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