Discover Dartmoor: Historical Gems and Bodmin Jail Experience

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This guide forms part of our complete United Kingdom Travel Guide, featuring scenic road trips, iconic destinations, practical travel advice and honest first-hand travel experiences from across the UK.

This feature article is part of our 3 Days in Cornwall: Ultimate Guide. We travelled from Land’s End, Penzance and Mousehole to St Michael’s Mount, Falmouth, and our favourite, St Mawes. Along the way, we experienced Bodmin Jail, the King Harry Ferry, Tamar Bridge and Dartmoor. Follow our Cornwall road trip with personal experiences and practical visitor tips. Read the complete three-day Cornwall guide here.

You can also catch up on other counties in our English Counties Travel Guide. We’ve included the counties of coastal Dorset to Somerset, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Berkshire, Merseyside and Greater London. Along the way, we’ve discovered historic cities, royal landmarks, spectacular coastlines and unforgettable road trips. Explore our firsthand county travel guides to help plan a better, more informed English vacation.

Sprawling across Devon and touching Cornwall’s eastern edge, Dartmoor is one of southern England’s last great wildernesses. Its granite tors rise suddenly from open moorland, while mist, weather, and silence shape the experience as much as the scenery. Dartmoor has been inhabited since prehistoric times, leaving behind stone circles, burial chambers, and ancient trackways. It’s a place of stories; smugglers, prisoners, folklore, and survival, where the land itself feels alive.

Dartmoor is wild, vast, and timeless; a dramatic landscape of tors, moorland, and myth where nature and legend dominate.

► Extended Visitor Guide: Dartmoor

◆ History & Landscape
Dartmoor’s history stretches back over 10,000 years. Bronze Age settlements, medieval farming remains, and centuries of tin mining are scattered across the moor. In more recent history, Dartmoor Prison housed French and American prisoners of war during the Napoleonic Wars. The moor’s isolation has always shaped its reputation, mysterious, dangerous, and deeply atmospheric.

◆ Top Things to Do
• Walk to iconic tors (Haytor, Hound Tor)
• Spot Dartmoor ponies roaming freely
• Explore ancient stone circles and clapper bridges
• Hiking, wild swimming, photography

Admission
• Free access across most of the moor

Best Places to Stay
• Two Bridges Hotel: Classic moorland base
• The Moorland Hotel: Views across open moor

⭐ Special Feature: Jamaica Inn – Smugglers & Legend

The Jamaica Inn sits high on Bodmin Moor at the edge of Dartmoor and is one of England’s most famous pubs. Built in 1750, it became notorious as a smugglers’ haunt, where contraband spirits, tobacco, and goods were hidden and traded under cover of darkness. Its isolated position made it perfect for illegal activity, and stories of wreckers luring ships onto rocks became part of local legend.

The inn gained worldwide fame after Daphne du Maurier used it as the setting for her novel Jamaica Inn, cementing its place in British literary history. Today, visitors can explore the smugglers’ museum, enjoy traditional food, and sit by the fire imagining the dangerous, lawless world that once thrived on the moor.

The Jamaica Inn offers a characterful overnight stay steeped in history, set high on the moorland where Cornwall meets Dartmoor. The inn dates back to the mid-18th century and has long served as a resting point for travellers crossing the wild interior, a role it still fulfils today. Its thick stone walls, low ceilings, and open fires reflect centuries of use, while the surrounding landscape remains as exposed and dramatic as ever; a setting that plays a major part in the experience of staying here.

The hotel provides a range of traditional en-suite rooms, from cosy doubles to larger family options, many furnished in a classic country-inn style that suits the building’s age. Prices typically range from £90 to £160 per night, depending on room type and season, with breakfast usually included. Guests also have access to the inn’s restaurant, bar, and on-site museum, allowing them to fully immerse themselves in the story of the building after day visitors have left. Staying overnight at the Jamaica Inn isn’t about luxury polish; it’s about atmosphere, history, and the rare chance to experience one of Cornwall’s most legendary landmarks once the moor grows quiet.

🌟 Why These Two Matter

Together, both Bodmin Jail and Dartmoor reveal Cornwall’s darker, deeper story; one of punishment, survival, isolation, and resilience. They balance Cornwall’s beaches and harbours with powerful inland history, making them essential stops for travellers who want more than just scenery.

Cornwall is shaped by the Atlantic and English Channel, forged through fishing, mining, and seafaring, and fiercely proud of its identity, Cornwall offers stories as rich as its landscapes. Below is an exclusive, visitor guide to many of Cornwall’s most loved locations, with its own personality, history, and reason to be explored.

Explore these places in Cornwall England

Continue exploring Cornwall

Nearby attractions

Eden Project and Zipline

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Dartmoor, Devon-Cornwall, England ⎮ Smugglers, Prisoners, Folklore ⎮ One Of Southern England’s Last Great Wildernesses