Glorious Countryside
South Devon is such a special place that great sweeps have been designated as protected landscapes to help keep them not only beautiful, but thriving places supporting vibrant local communities, and full of wonderful wildlife. Here in these living tapestry's rich in heritage and culture there is still space for people and nature to live side by side.
To the south is South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty with rugged cliffs, sandy coves, peaceful countryside of patchwork fields, ancient orchards and woodlands, narrow winding lanes and high Devon hedges, secretive estuaries and pretty villages. As well as being a great place to come on holiday its home to 34,000 people and a thriving dynamic place to work.
To the north is Dartmoor National Park a completely different but equally special landscape with wide open areas of moorland, out of which great granite tors erupt often smoothed by thousands of years of exposure to the elements, surrounded by farmland and wooded valleys. Dartmoor is home to about 33,400 people, it's been farmed for over 5,000 years, and as in South Devon AONB it is largely farmers who worked and re-working the land that created and maintain a large part of the landscape.
