Sharp Tor, Lydford

• Parish: Lydford
• Height: 519 m (Hemery gives 1,719 ft, about 524 m)
• Grid reference: SX 5501 8485
• Rock: Granite
• Also called: Lydford Sharp, Sharpator

Sharp Tor stands at 519 m on the north moor in Lydford parish, a steep west scarp topped by a big mass of granite with a spread of loose blocks on its western side. The views reach over North Devon and Cornwall. The main outcrop is a huge block split into tall vertical segments, and pink granite shows on the north side, a sign that the tor sits at the edge of the granite mass. Seen from a distance it is overshadowed by the more conical Hare Tor.

The name first appears on William Mudge's Ordnance Survey map of Devon in 1809. William Crossing, in his Guide to Dartmoor (1912), is the first to call it Lydford Sharp, the name moormen used to tell it apart from the chief pile of the Tavy Cleave group, which has the same name. He also passed on a remark made some ninety years before that the tor deserved its name, with some points as sharp as a spear. Eric Hemery (1983) called it an avenue tor, with a small shelter built against its south wall, and gave the height as 1,719 feet.

Dartmoor has seven tors called Sharp Tor and two spelled Sharpitor. This is the highest of the seven and the one on the north moor; Sharp Tor in the Tavy Cleave group lies a little to the south-east and is a lower, steep-faced tor above the River Tavy.

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