Dartmoor National Park is beautiful, a huge area of moorland situated in the county of Devon, in southwest England, some 368 square miles in all.

 

It’s craggy landscape, broken up by forests, rivers and wetlands is simply stunning. All across the moor you will discover Neolithic tombs, Bronze Age stone circles and abandoned medieval farmhouses.

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The granite which forms the uplands dates from the Carboniferous Period of geological history, and all over Dartmoor you will find rocky outcrops known as tors, which although often on very exposed hill tops provide great habitats for all sorts of wildlife, and shelter for the ponies too!

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The highest point on Dartmoor is 621m above sea level, so as you can imagine the weather conditions can often be wild and harsh, so down through the generations the Dartmoor pony has had to become resilient, tough and clever!

Thousands of people come from all over the world to see herds of semi-feral ponies running free on the moor, and they have become a valuable tourist attraction in their own right!

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Not all the ponies you will see grazing the commons of Dartmoor are pedigree ponies, there are also herds of mixed breed hill ponies and quite a few Shetland Ponies, but this website exists to talk about the endangered native breed that is the pedigree Dartmoor.