North Hessary Tor Trig

From North Hessary Tor trig pillar scan your eyes across the horizon and spot other tors across the region including Great Mis, Fur, Beardown, Longaford, Bellever, Hay, Rippon, Sheeps and Leather Tors. The tor itself, formerly known as North Hisworthy Tor, was once a boundary point on the Dartmoor Forest Perambulation of AD 1240, which was defined by the knights who rode the boundary on horseback and to which everyone who died within this massive parish had to be carried a long way in a coffin to Lydford; along what is known as the Lych Way.

Another interesting feature is the inscription PCWW / 1917 on the south-west face of the tor, which denotes Plymouth Corporation Water Works, the company that instructed the construction of Burrator Reservoir, completed in 1898. There are around 70 granite posts all around the catchment area of the reservoir so that Plymouth Corporation could put a stop to pollution coming from any of the surrounding farms, which were subsequently abandoned by moving out the inhabitants with no compensation offered. North Hessary, the highest part of the catchment, is unusual in that the inscription is not on a post but a tor!The most striking feature here, obviously, is the remarkable 196-metre high transmitter mast, perhaps Dartmoor’s most recognisable manmade landmark.