Okehampton Castle

Okehampton Castle stands on a ridge overlooking the West Okement Valley, its weathered stone keep and bailey rising from moorland slopes. Built by the Normans in the 11th century, the castle dominated this corner of Devon for centuries before gradual decay left only foundations and fragments, enough to imagine the fortress it once was.

The walk up to the ruins rewards you with views across open moorland and river valleys, the landscape much as it would have appeared to medieval sentries. Scattered earthworks and broken walls reward closer exploration, and the setting itself, wild, windswept, and quietly impressive, captures something essential about Dartmoor's history.