Penn Beacon

• Grid reference: SX 5998 6287
• Height: 429 m
• Parish: Cornwood
• Also spelt: Pen Beacon
• Trig point: Ordnance Survey trig pillar "Penn Beacon", SX 59940 62934, 428 m, flush bracket S3427; a secondary station of the retriangulation of Great Britain, its position computed in 1946; recorded as slightly damaged

Penn Beacon is the last high point of the moor before it falls to Cornwood and the Plymouth hinterland. The cairn on its summit stands out from Plymouth, and a rough shelter built into it gives some cover from the south-westerly wind.

It is not a tor in the strict sense. Eric Hemery wrote in 1983 that the tor remnant is small, smaller than a single huge rock on the south-east side of the summit, while the clitter, the spread of loose boulders left by the original rock pile, covers much of the brow of the hill.

The slopes hold a dense prehistoric landscape. The Penn Moor contour reave runs across the hill with settlements along it (Penn Moor reave, west end, Penn Moor reave and settlement); there are enclosures with hut circles on the south-west slope (Penn Beacon south-west slope enclosure and two hut circles) and above the Ford Brook (Penn Beacon enclosure and eleven hut circles above Ford Brook, Penn Beacon enclosure and clay works leat), and cairns to the west (Cairn on the south-west slope of Penn Beacon, Cairn with a hollow, west slope of Penn Beacon). A stone row lies at SX 59947 62553, just west of the reave that runs up to the Beacon from the south.

The trig pillar stands beside the highest point. Its flush bracket, the numbered metal plate on its side, is damaged.

This is one of the places in Dartmoor Trig Points, a guide to the Ordnance Survey trig pillars on and around the moor.

Sources: Tors of Dartmoor, Penn Beacon; E. Hemery, High Dartmoor (1983); D. Parks, Prehistoric Dartmoor Walks; Historic England records via the listings linked here; TrigpointingUK, Penn Beacon.