River Swincombe

Princetown is a village located within Dartmoor national park in the English county of Devon. It is the principal settlement of the civil parish of Dartmoor Forest. The village has its origins in 1785, when Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, then secretary to the Prince of Wales, leased a large area of moorland from the Duchy of Cornwall estate, hoping to convert it into good farmland. He encouraged people to live in the area and suggested that a prison be built there. He called the settlement Princetown after the Prince of Wales. Princetown is the site of Dartmoor Prison. At around 1,430 feet (435 m) above sea level, it is the highest settlement on the moor, and one of the highest in the United Kingdom. It is also the largest settlement located on the high moor. The Princetown Railway, closed in 1956, was also the highest railway line in England: its Princetown terminus was also 1,430 feet above sea level.

Princetown railway station, opened in 1883 was the terminus of the 10.5 mile long single track branch line in Devon, England, running from Yelverton with eventually four intermediate stops, three being halts and one at Dousland as a fully fledged station.

The Anglican Church of St Michael (sometimes known as St Michael and All Angels) in Princetown, Devon, England was built between 1810 and 1814. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building, and is a redundant church in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.The granite church stands near the middle of Dartmoor, 436 metres (1,430 ft) above sea level in an exposed location close to Dartmoor Prison. Permission for the construction of the church was given 1812 by the Lord Commissioners of the Admiralty. The church was designed by the architect Daniel Alexander and built by prisoners from the Napoleonic Wars and finished by those captured during the American war who were held in the prison, and is the only church in England to have been built by prisoners of war.The three stage west tower is surmounted by pinnacles. Prisoners of war were held in the prison until 1816 and then the church closed. It was reopened and reconsecrated in 1831. In 1868 the chancel was altered and between 1898 and 1901 further alterations and expansion were undertaken under the direction of Edmund Sedding. In 1915 the tower was restored.The east window has stained glass by Mayer of Munich, which was installed in 1910 in memory of the American prisoners who helped to build the church. The graves of many prisoners are in the churchyard. The window was partially funded by a donation of £250, in 1908, from the National Society United States Daughters of 1812 as part of their work commemorating those who died in the War of 1812. The church was declared redundant on 1 November 1995, and was vested in the Trust on 8 January 2001. It is still consecrated and it is used occasionally for services.

HM Prison Dartmoor is a Category C men's prison, located in Princetown, high on Dartmoor in the English county of Devon. Its high granite walls dominate this area of the moor. The prison is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, and is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. Dartmoor Prison was given Grade II heritage listing in 1987.

Tor Royal is a Grade II listed building near Princetown, Dartmoor, in the English county of Devon. Built between 1785 and 1793 by Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, it was added to in c.1815–20, and restored by A. E. Richardson in 1912.From the end of the 18th century there was much interest in enclosing and "improving" the open moorland on Dartmoor, and Tyrwhitt enthusiastically took part in this programme. In 1785 he bought over 2,000 acres near one of the newly constructed turnpike roads across the moor and had an access road built to his estate, where he experimented with growing various crops, the most successful of which was flax.According to the listing text at British Listed Buildings, the interest of this house lies "not only in the quality of its interior and its unaltered nature, but also in its historical importance to Princetown and its royal connections." Tyrwhitt instigated the building of both Dartmoor Prison (1809) and the Plymouth and Dartmoor Railway (1823) which led to the development of Princetown as a town. Various members of the royal family visited and stayed at the house, Prince Albert in August 1846, for example.

Standing on the summit of North Hessary Tor in Devon, England is an FM radio and television transmitter which uses as aerial a 196 metres (643 ft) high guyed mast.

North Hessary Tor is a 517 metres hill just above Dartmoor Prison, in Princetown within Dartmoor Forest civil parish, which is in the borough of West Devon, Devon, England (grid reference SX578742). The tor is one of the boundary points mentioned in the perambulations of the Forest of Dartmoor.Standing on the summit is the North Hessary Tor transmitting station, an FM radio and television transmitter which uses a 196 metres (643 ft) high guyed mast. It was built by the BBC in 1955 when a transmitter was needed to introduce 405-line television into Devon. It now carries a small UHF TV transmitter which serves Princetown and Dartmoor. FM radio transmissions began in 1956 and cover most of Devon and eastern parts of Cornwall.

Dartmoor is an upland area in southern Devon, South West England. The moorland and surrounding land has been protected by National Park status since 1951. Dartmoor National Park covers 954 km2 (368 sq mi).The granite which forms the uplands dates from the Carboniferous Period of geological history. The landscape consists of moorland capped with many exposed granite hilltops known as tors, providing habitats for wildlife. The highest point is High Willhays, 621 m (2,037 ft) above sea level. The entire area is rich in antiquities and archaeological artefacts. Dartmoor National Park is managed by the Dartmoor National Park Authority, whose 22 members are drawn from Devon County Council, local district councils and Government. Parts of Dartmoor have been used as military firing ranges for over 200 years. The public is granted extensive land access rights on Dartmoor (including restricted access to the firing ranges) and it is a popular tourist destination.

Dartmoor kistvaens are burial tombs or cists from the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age, i.e. from c. 2500 BC to c. 1500 BC. Kistvaens have been found in many places, including Dartmoor, a 954 km2 (368 square miles) area of moorland in south Devon, England. The box-like stone tombs were created when the ancient people of the area lived in hut circles. Cists are often to be found in the centre of a cairn circle although some appear solitary which could be the result of the loss of an original slight mound. There are over 180 known cists on Dartmoor although there could be up to 100 that remain buried underneath unexplored cairns. In the South West there are no cists to be found on the Quantock Hills, only 2 to be found on Exmoor and 58 to be found on Bodmin Moor. The Dartmoor cists are unique in that about 94% have the longer axis of the tomb orientated in a NW/SE direction It appears that Dartmoor cists were positioned in such a way that the deceased were facing the Sun.In August 2011 an untouched cist, on Whitehorse Hill, near Chagford, was the first to be excavated on the moor for over 100 years. This burial yielded some rare Bronze Age artefacts made of organic materials.

The Dartmoor crosses are a series of stone crosses found in Dartmoor National Park in the centre of Devon, England. Many of them are old navigational aids, needed because of the remoteness of the moorland and its typically bad weather. Some mark medieval routes between abbeys. Other crosses were erected as memorials, for prayer, as town or market crosses, in churchyards, and as boundary markers. The crosses were erected over a long period of time, some as recently as 100 years ago, the earliest probably almost 1,000 years ago. In 2005, the Dartmoor National Park Authority had an ongoing project to microchip the most vulnerable of its granite artifacts, including crosses, to deter theft and aid the recovery of any that might be stolen.

The tin mining industry on Dartmoor, Devon, England, is thought to have originated in pre-Roman times, and continued right through to the 20th century, when the last commercially worked mine (Golden Dagger Mine) closed in November 1930 (though it saw work during the Second World War). From the 12th century onwards tin mining was regulated by a stannary parliament which had its own laws. Tin is smelted from cassiterite, a mineral found in hydrothermal veins in granite, and the uplands of Dartmoor were a particularly productive area. The techniques used for the extraction of tin from Dartmoor followed a progression from streaming through open cast mining to underground mining. Today, there are extensive archaeological remains of these three phases of the industry, as well as of the several stages of processing that were necessary to convert the ore to tin metal.

Two Bridges is an isolated location on the river West Dart in the heart of Dartmoor National Park in Devon, England. It is situated around 2.5 km (1.6 mi) northeast of Princetown at the intersection of the two roads that cross Dartmoor: one is the old turnpike road which was built across Dartmoor in the late 18th century (now known as the B3212); the other is the B3357. A map dated 1765 suggests the origin of the name, for in those days the road crossed both the West Dart and the River Cowsic, just upstream from the point where they meet, and required two separate bridges. By 1891, these had disappeared and there was just a single bridge, further downstream, over the West Dart. Today, however, there are again two bridges on the site, because a more modern structure has been added alongside its earlier predecessor. Visitors often mistakenly assume that these are the same two bridges that gave the name to the site. In the 18th century, Two Bridges was best known for its potato market. Some small quarries in the vicinity show that there was also light industry in the area. Those who met and worked in this remote spot were fed and lodged at the Saracen's Head. It was built in 1794 as a coaching inn, and still stands there today, although it is now known as the Two Bridges Hotel. It continues to be a popular meeting point for tourists and walkers. The area is also surrounded by prehistoric antiquities, including Bronze Age settlements, stone rows and an impressive standing stone, the Beardown Man, situated to the north. The Devonport Leat—a man-made waterchannel—passes nearby. Wistman's Wood, a high-altitude oak wood, is 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) to the north.