Discover Dartmoor’s Rainforests: Black-a-Tor Copse — Upland oakwood

Black-a-Tor Copse is one of three upland woodlands on Dartmoor, the most famous of which is Wistman’s Wood. Black-a-Tor Copse is more remote and hence less damaged by a high number of visitors. We will nonetheless pick a careful route to avoid harming this fragile environment, home to rare plants and upland birds; it even has a lichen found nowhere else in Britain.

We will ponder why its stunted oak trees are the ‘wrong species’ and whether this is indeed a remnant of the original wildwood that covered Britain at the end of the last Ice Age.