Wistman's Wood

Wistman's Wood has been mentioned in writing for hundreds of years. It is likely to be a leftover from the ancient forest that covered much of Dartmoor c. 7000 BCE, before Mesolithic hunter/gatherers cleared it around 5000 BCE. Over this period, the older oak trees have grown from a stunted/semi-prostrate to a more ascending form, while a new generation of mostly straight-grown and single-stemmed oaks has developed. The oldest oaks appear to be 400–500 years old, and originated within a degenerating oakwood that survived in scrub form during two centuries of cold climate. The Buller Stone, a boulder to the east of the wood, commemorates an attempt in 1866 to date the trees, when Wentworth…

The wood is split into three main blocks (North, Middle, and South Groves or Woods), which in total cover about 3.5 ha. Wistman's Wood is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall and has been managed since 1961 under a nature reserve agreement with the Nature Conservancy Council, English Nature and Natural England. The wood has no active management, but many people visit the site on foot (mostly accessing the southern end of South Wood), and cattle and sheep have free access where the terrain permits, outside of a small fenced enclosure in South Wood.