Postbridge

Postbridge is a small hamlet at the heart of Dartmoor, on the B3212 roughly midway between Princetown and Moretonhampstead. It sits on the East Dart river, one of the two main branches of the River Dart, and amounts to little more than a few houses, a shop, a pub and hotel, and the National Park’s visitor centre.

The hamlet takes its name from its clapper bridge, a Grade II*-listed crossing believed to have been built in the thirteenth century and first recorded in 1380. Its granite slabs run over four metres long and weigh more than eight tonnes each, laid so pack horses could carry tin across the East Dart to the stannary town of Tavistock. A road bridge built in the 1780s now carries traffic alongside it.

The Dartmoor National Park visitor centre at Postbridge reopened after a major renovation in 2020 and includes an exhibition on the Bronze Age burial finds excavated at nearby Whitehorse Hill in 2011, where cremated remains and other grave goods had survived for thousands of years in the peat. Princetown and Moretonhampstead bookend the road through Postbridge and both have a fuller range of shops, a useful comparison if you want more than a hamlet-sized choice of amenities. Moorland roads can flood or ice in winter, so check conditions before a late arrival.