Manaton

Manaton is a scattered village on the eastern moor, gathered around a green and a church with the moor rising immediately behind it. It is a place better known for what surrounds it than for the village itself, and the country here is some of the most characterful on Dartmoor. Bowerman's Nose, a weathered granite stack that looks unmistakably like a face in profile, stands on the slope above, and the legend attached to it tells of a hunter turned to stone by witches for disturbing their gathering, a story that has been told in various forms for a very long time.

Hound Tor lies close by, one of the great rock piles of the moor, and beneath it are the excavated remains of a medieval village abandoned in the fourteenth century, its house walls and corn drying barns still clearly readable in the turf. Becka Falls, where the Becka Brook drops through a jumble of boulders, is a short distance away and popular with families. Manaton itself remains quiet, with the church of St Winifred and the green at its heart, and it makes an excellent starting point for walks into Lustleigh Cleave and up onto the tors.