MARCH 2025 · GROUNDED
Black Tor
Black Tor, West Dartmoor
The first night of the road trip, and I camped at Black Tor. Not the original plan — the plan was the river valley below — but the tor was visible from the track and the views were obvious and I made the decision late and climbed.
Tors are stacked granite — formed underground, exposed by erosion over millennia, the layers horizontal like pages in a book. Black Tor is a good one. The layering is distinct, the blocks well-defined, the structure readable. At dusk, warm light sits on the granite surfaces and the plateau spreads out below in green and brown.
The tree is doing what hawthorns do on exposed Dartmoor: surviving in the shape the wind insists on.
Black Tor — March 2025
The work I wanted to do was with the foreground rocks. The ground around the tor is scattered with smaller boulders, lichen-covered, frost-touched in March, and these can frame the tor itself or lead into it depending on where you stand. Lichen-covered granite in the foreground, the tor on the ridge above, moorland slopes between them: the depth compresses into something layered, each plane with its own texture.
A windswept hawthorn tree stands alone on the exposed slope below the tor — wind-bent, silhouetted against the moorland behind, a single fence line running across the valley beneath it. The tree is doing what hawthorns do on exposed Dartmoor: surviving in the shape the wind insists on.
The stone weir at the bottom of the valley — water cascading through, a wooden footbridge crossing above it — is a functional thing embedded in the landscape. Someone built it and maintains it and it is not significant except that it is specific, and specificity is the point.
Frost on the granite in the morning. The tor unchanged.
Lichen-covered granite boulders in foreground frame Black Tor across bare moorland under overcast sky
Moss and lichen-covered granite tors with sparse golden grass, moorland slopes visible in soft distance
Windswept hawthorn tree standing alone on exposed moorland with gentle hills beyond
Wind-bent tree silhouetted against moorland slope with weathered fence line running across valley
Lichen-stained stone wall with barbed wire fence overlooking green valley far below, distant hills
Granite rock formations at dusk with warm light on moorland plateau stretching across valleys below
Black Tor's layered granite formation rising from moorland with wooded valleys below
Stacked granite tor with distinct horizontal geological layers and moss-covered rocks in close foreground
Rock-scattered moorland slope with sparse grass framing Black Tor on ridge above, hazy distance
Frost-covered granite rocks and sparse moorland grass with distant tor under pale overcast sky
Close-up of weathered granite surface with moss, lichen, and frost showing geological texture detail
Stone weir with water cascading through moorland stream, wooden footbridge crossing above