Holne

Holne stands high above the Dart valley on the southern moor, a village of granite and thatch around a church and a church house that has served the parish since the fifteenth century. Its best known son is the writer Charles Kingsley, author of The Water Babies and Westward Ho!, who was born at the vicarage here in 1819 while his father was curate, though the family moved away when he was very young. The village looks out over some of the most beautiful country on Dartmoor.

Below Holne the Dart runs through a deep wooded gorge, and the walks from the village down into Holne Woods and along the river are among the finest on the moor, particularly in autumn. Above, the ground rises quickly onto Holne Moor and Holne Ridge, open country crossed by leats and scattered with the remains of tin working, leading eventually to Ryder's Hill, the highest point on the southern moor. The village has an inn and a tea room, and remains a quiet place from which to reach both the woods and the tops.