Belstone Pound

Belstone Pound is a circular stone-built enclosure that sits on the granite slopes above the village, a practical relic of medieval moorland management. Built to confine wandering cattle and sheep, it speaks to the ancient commons system that shaped Dartmoor's landscape - a place where disputes over grazing rights were settled by locking up your neighbour's animals until recompense was paid.

The pound's weathered walls, still largely intact, stand as a reminder that this moorland was never wilderness but a carefully managed resource, contested and valued. Walking to it across the open moor offers the kind of isolation and wide horizons that reward the effort, with views across the granite-scattered slopes that have changed little in centuries.