Temperate rainforest · Wisht Hounds · Dartmoor folklore
Wistman’s Wood
Two Bridges · Dartmoor · Devon
Across an open Dartmoor valley, twisted oaks rise between granite boulders under a skin of moss and lichen. The woodland is real, rare and fragile. Around it runs a much darker trail of phantom hounds, Druids and the spirit of the moor.
Photo: Alan Hunt via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
A rainforest shaped by granite and weather
Wistman’s Wood is a surviving upland oakwood in the West Dart valley. The walk brings you close enough to see contorted branches, mossy boulders and extraordinary lichen communities from the woodland edge. Its atmosphere needs no invention, but centuries of stories have supplied phantom hounds and ancient rites anyway.
At a glance
Visitor details checked 27 August 2026Small trees, enormous ecological value
Wistman’s looks primeval because every surface seems occupied. Oaks twist through a clitter of granite while ferns, mosses and lichens soften the boundary between tree and stone.
A temperate rainforest fragment
High rainfall, clean air and an oceanic climate allow moisture-loving plants to flourish. The reserve is one of Dartmoor’s surviving upland oakwoods and part of a globally scarce temperate rainforest habitat.
The trees are not necessarily thousands of years old. Their twisted forms come from exposure, poor soils, altitude and growth among granite boulders.A forest growing on a forest
Branches carry layered communities of mosses, ferns and lichens. Wistman’s is one of only two known British sites for the rare horsehair lichen Bryoria smithii.
That richness also explains the no-entry request. A boot on a boulder can destroy slow-growing habitat that may take decades to recover.Not a woodland frozen in time
Historic descriptions and photographs show that the wood has changed in height and density. Natural England and the Duchy of Cornwall are now supporting regeneration beyond the best-known old trees.
The aim is not to stage-manage a relic. It is to help a vulnerable woodland expand and survive in a changing climate.When the Wisht Hounds leave the wood
In Dartmoor folklore, the Wisht Hounds are a spectral pack that races across the moor at night. Descriptions vary, but the familiar version gives them red eyes, smoking breath and an unearthly cry. Their hunt is led by a dark huntsman, sometimes identified with the Devil and sometimes with an older spirit of the landscape.
Wistman’s Wood became one of the pack’s supposed kennels. From the tangled oaks they were said to surge into the darkness, hunting lost souls or pursuing anyone unlucky enough to hear them. The name fits the mood: in Devon dialect, “wisht” can mean eerie, uncanny or haunted.
The hounds belong to the wider European Wild Hunt tradition, but Dartmoor made them its own. They may also preserve the fear generated by real nocturnal sounds, including foxes, owls and packs of hunting dogs carried strangely across open ground.
The stories rooted around the oaks
Wistman’s Wood attracted antiquarians long before modern ecology explained its value. Some of their ideas became folklore in their own right.
The Druid grove
Nineteenth-century writers promoted the wood as a sacred grove of “wise men” or Druids, with granite boulders imagined as altars. Prehistoric remains survive on the surrounding moor, but there is no archaeological proof of Druid ceremonies inside the wood.
Old Crockern
The spirit Old Crockern is sometimes described riding a skeletal horse across Dartmoor, with Wistman’s Wood as the stable or meeting place of his phantom hounds. Versions differ because the story grew through retelling rather than one fixed text.
The uncertain name
“Wistman” has been linked to wise men, the dialect word “wisht” and even a local name for the Devil. None is universally accepted. The uncertainty is more honest, and more interesting, than choosing the most dramatic translation as fact.
A much older human landscape
The wood is not an isolated curiosity. It sits among prehistoric settlements and later routes that show people have crossed and occupied this part of Dartmoor for thousands of years.
Prehistoric hut circles
On higher ground north-east of the wood are the ruined walls of more than one hundred prehistoric round houses. They provide real evidence of settlement, without needing to recruit imaginary Druids.
The West Dart valley
The river valley creates the route visitors still follow from Two Bridges. Open moor, granite clitter and woodland meet within a compact landscape that can change character quickly with the weather.
A reserve still expanding
Conservation work encourages new oak growth outside the famous core. The future Wistman’s Wood may be larger than the fragment inherited by the present generation.
Walk to the edge of the wood
The destination is the journey as much as the trees. The open approach lets Wistman’s slowly emerge from the valley rather than appearing beside a car park.
The Two Bridges return walk
Follow the established route out across the moor, spend time at the woodland edge and return by the same path.
Start opposite Two Bridges
Use the small car park opposite the hotel only if a marked space is available. Cross carefully and follow the signed track beside Crockern Farm, keeping to the public route.
Cross the open valley
The broad track narrows and becomes rougher, wetter and muddier as it follows the West Dart valley. Pause to look back across the moor and watch the weather.
Stay at the woodland edge
View the oaks and granite clitter from the path, then return the same way. You do not need to enter the trees to understand the place, and doing so damages the habitat that makes it exceptional.
Getting there
The walk begins beside the B3357 at Two Bridges, west of Princetown. The National Park describes the parking area as very small. If it is full, do not block the road, gateways or passing places.
Approximate coordinates: 50.5570, -3.9650
Parking: Very limited roadside car park spaces
Access and conditions
The route begins on a broad track but becomes uneven, muddy and wet. It is not a wheelchair-friendly route. There are no toilets, café or staffed visitor facilities at the reserve, and mobile reception can be unreliable.
Two more places where history refuses to settle
Keep the journey in Devon with a famously haunted castle and the site of England’s last executions for witchcraft.
Berry Pomeroy Castle
Explore a romantic ruin associated with the White Lady, the Blue Lady and centuries of enthusiastically tangled ghost stories.
Explore Berry Pomeroy Castle →Bideford Witch Trials
Follow the documented story of three women executed in 1682, while confronting the later folklore built around their deaths.
Explore the Bideford Witch Trials →Stand at the edge of something genuinely rare
Come for the twisted oaks and the stories of the Wisht Hounds. Leave with the more surprising truth: this uncanny-looking wood is alive, changing and vulnerable. Its mystery survives best when the woodland itself does too.