Skip to content

← Browse Tors & Landmarks · Browse the directory

Tors & Landmarks

Roborough Rock

Roborough, Yelverton, Devon

Grid ref: SX 5156 6716 Find this on the Map Reference Finder

Roborough Rock, also known as Yelverton Rock or simply "The Rock," is an igneous outcrop immediately south-west of Yelverton on Roborough Down, beside the A386. It stands at the southern end of the former RAF Harrowbeer airfield, whose wartime runways were laid out around it.

Seen from the north, the eastern mass of the rock has long been said to resemble a human profile, earning it the nicknames "Duke of Wellington's Nose" and "George III's Nose." In 1830 the lower middle section of the rock was removed for road maintenance, leaving the two raised humps that give the outcrop its present two-part shape.

The rock has carried several earlier names on historical maps: Ullestor Rock (or Ulster Rock) on Dunn's 18th-century map of Dartmoor, Hurstone Rock on Donn's map of 1765, and Udell Torre in the 16th century, also recorded as Udal Tor.

Source: Wikipedia.

Photo: "Roborough Rock, Yelverton" by Mark Land, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Share

Contact us if you have information about this listing

Upcoming events

See these events in What’s On →

Go deeper with Dartefacts

Dartefacts is a database of Dartmoor sites with far more close-up detail than we can show here, and it is the best place to go deeper. Dartefacts is free to use, and nobody has to pay to look things up. If you want more, a yearly subscription adds 10-figure grid references, map zoom down to 1:25,000 and lists to tick off the places you have visited, and it helps keep the site going. We would encourage you to subscribe.

Thoughts

Be the first to share a thought about Roborough Rock.

Share a thought
Dartmoor quiz
“I be mazed 'bout blue." ... "Butter be mazed twice a year, they say" ... "It un't going to bittle." ... "Do it vitty, now.”

Which book is this from?

Through a Dartmoor Window. Written by Beatrice Chase in 1915.

Worth a visit

Know another Dartmoor place, tor or landmark we should include? Suggest a listing, it is free.

Suggest a listing