Forest, river and granite
Bellever
A tiny forestry hamlet on the East Dart, with waymarked woodland trails, a clapper bridge and a tor rising beyond the trees.
- Best for
- Forest trails, river picnics and prehistoric remains
- Landscape
- Conifer forest wrapped around the East Dart
- Know first
- Bellever has no pub, shop or church
The Fox verdict
Come for the forest, then look beyond the trees
Bellever brings together waymarked forest trails, an East Dart clapper bridge, a family-friendly first tor and a dense prehistoric landscape.
The wooded setting makes Bellever a different kind of Dartmoor base. Picnic or paddle by the river, follow the forest trails, climb Bellever Tor, and seek out the stone rows, cists and hut remains on Lakehead Hill; Postbridge and Warren House Inn add nearby history and food.
Where to go
Places in Bellever
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesBellever Forest
Bellever's main draw, with waymarked family walking and off-road cycling trails, riverside picnic spots and a conifer setting in the heart of the high moor.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 90 minutes
- Locality
- wrapping the hamlet on its north, west and south sides
- Access
- The research records a Forestry England car park and seasonal visitor point by the East Dart.
Bellever Tor
A 443m granite tor ringed by Bronze Age cairns, described in the research as an easy family first tor with wide central-Dartmoor views.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 90 minutes
- Locality
- 1.5km south-west of the hamlet
- Access
- The climb is short but steep from the forest edge.
Warren House Inn
An isolated moorland inn at 1,425ft, known for its reputedly ever-burning fire, Warreners Pie and steak and ale pie made with local Dartmoor beef and real ale.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 90 minutes
- Locality
- roughly 10 minutes' drive north
- Access
- The research says food is served all day from midday.
History & heritage
3 placesLakehead Hill and Kraps Rings
Stone rows, cairn circles, cists and the Kraps Rings hut settlement form a dense prehistoric complex, with features re-emerging as conifers are felled.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 75 minutes
- Locality
- just north
Postbridge Clapper Bridge
A famous medieval crossing over the East Dart, formed from three great granite slabs and probably built in the 13th century for the tin trade.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 30 minutes
- Locality
- Postbridge, 2km north
National Park Visitor Centre, Postbridge
A National Park information centre selling refreshments, with a small display of prehistoric tools, pottery and weapons found locally.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 45 minutes
- Locality
- Postbridge, 2km north
Things to do
1 placeBellever Clapper Bridge
A granite-slab crossing on the line of the Lych Way, the ancient corpse road to Lydford, with shallow paddling and picnicking by the river.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 30 minutes
- Locality
- at the hamlet, over the East Dart
- Access
- The research identifies shallow paddling and picnicking by the East Dart river and its clapper bridge.
No places match this filter. Choose All places to reset the list.
Three ways to explore Bellever
Signature outings
The Lych Way bridge
Stand on Bellever's granite-slab crossing, where the Lych Way carried the dead across the moor towards Lydford.
Lakehead Hill and Kraps Rings
Look for stone rows, cairn circles, cists and the hut settlement in a landscape gradually re-emerging from the conifers.
The fire at Warren House
Pair a home-made pie with the inn's peat-fire story: its flame has reputedly been kept alive since 1845.
The village story
Bellever Village Guide
The East Dart, a planted forest and thousands of years of moorland history meet at Bellever.
The bridge and the forestry hamlet
A clapper bridge crosses the East Dart at Bellever — flat granite slabs laid across the river on the line of the Lych Way, the old corpse road that carried the dead across the moor to Lydford for burial. You can stand on it now and watch children paddle in the shallows below, which is a gentler use for it.
Bellever is a cluster of farm buildings, forestry cottages and a youth hostel on the river, wrapped on three sides by Bellever Forest. There is no pub, no shop and no church. It was never a parish village — just a Duchy of Cornwall farm, first recorded in 1355 as "Welford," the spring by the ford. The Forestry Commission bought it in 1931 and planted conifers over most of it, and several of the houses went up in the 1950s for the men who worked the trees.
Into the forest and up the tor
The forest is the reason to come. Waymarked trails run through it for walkers and off-road cyclists, there's a Forestry England car park and a seasonal visitor point, and the riverbank has picnic spots along the East Dart. It is one of the few genuinely wooded pockets in the middle of the high moor, which makes it a different kind of Dartmoor to the bare granite everywhere else.
Bellever Tor rises to the south-west, 443 metres of granite ringed by Bronze Age cairns. It's a short, steep climb from the forest edge and an easy first tor for children, with wide views across central Dartmoor once you're up.
Prehistoric ground and the nearest inn
Lakehead Hill, just north, holds stone rows, cairn circles, cists and the Kraps Rings hut settlement — a prehistoric complex so dense that the antiquarian John Page called Bellever "the Ancient Metropolis of the Moor" in 1895. Much of it was buried under the conifers for decades and is only now re-emerging as areas are felled. A 2011 dig exposed a Bronze Age roundhouse eight metres across with a paved granite floor.
For a pub you drive. The Warren House Inn is about ten minutes north on the B3212 — the highest inn in southern England at 1,425 feet, built to feed the tin miners of Golden Dagger and Vitifer. Its peat fire has reputedly burned without going out since 1845; when the hearth is cleaned the embers are carried to the second fireplace so the flame never dies. The kitchen does a home-made Warreners Pie, a rabbit feast that is the house signature, alongside steak and ale pie made with Dartmoor beef, and food runs all day from midday.
Hairy Hands and the old farm
The stretch of the B3212 just north of here is where the Hairy Hands are meant to appear — disembodied hands that grab the wheel and force you off the road. The story gathered force in 1921, when the prison's medical officer was killed coming off his motorcycle nearby.
The barns of the old farm became a youth hostel in 1934, and it's still going — Devon's oldest working hostel, five minutes from the trees. The farm that raised Galloway cattle here is gone under the plantation, but the river keeps running under the clapper bridge, the way it did long before anyone thought to plant a tree.
Stay around Dartmoor
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Dartmoor, linked directly to their property pages.
A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Bellever Forest — forestryengland.uk national body or asset manager
- Bellever Clapper Bridge — dartmoor.gov.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Bellever Tor — forestryengland.uk national body or asset manager
- Lakehead Hill and Kraps Rings — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Postbridge Clapper Bridge — dartmoor.gov.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- National Park Visitor Centre, Postbridge — dartmoor.gov.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Warren House Inn — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access