Photography at Bowerman’s Nose: Dartmoor’s Most Famous Tor

Legend has it that Bowerman’s Nose was once a real hunter, transformed into stone by a coven of disgruntled witches.

Having made the steep, relentless plod up from the Manaton car park, I must say I find myself sympathizing with the witches. Carrying a heavy iron cauldron up that incline is precisely the sort of activity to put anyone in a thoroughly foul mood.

However he came to be, Bowerman is easily one of the most delightfully absurd and distinctive granite tors on all of Dartmoor.

Standing roughly twenty feet tall, he must have been a fantastically unsubtle hunter. I can only assume his prey spotted his towering profile from three miles away and simply died of sheer astonishment.

Capturing Golden Hour on Dartmoor

As you might gather from the photograph, this shot was captured a month or two back. Dartmoor had just endured an unnaturally prolonged spell of glorious summer weather.

This rare heatwave transformed the usually soggy moorland into a crunchy, golden carpet—a bewildering sight in this famously damp corner of Devon, England.

Bathed in the warm, honeyed glow of sunset, this iconic stone face was, predictably, a popular draw for hikers and photographers alike.

How to Beat the Crowds at Bowerman’s Nose

I found myself competing for the prime photographic vantage point with several other cheerful souls who had ventured out to enjoy the evening air.

Lacking the supernatural capability to turn my rivals into granite (having foolishly left my cauldron in the car), I fell back on my trusty alternative landscape photography strategy: frantically sprinting back and forth with my tripod while issuing cheerful, overly enthusiastic waves to anyone who strayed too close.

In my long experience, the sight of an out-of-breath, slightly rotund photographer leaping about the heather and displaying a terrifying willingness to engage in endless small talk is more than enough to send even the most determined hiker veering off in the opposite direction.

It is perhaps a trifle sneaky, but when the light is fading and the Dartmoor landscape looks this good, a little mild social intimidation is entirely justified.

A tall, multi tiered rock formation stands on a hillside overlooking a lush, rolling landscape of fields and forests. It is twilight, and the sky is a gradient of orange, pink, and light blue with long, wispy clouds. The foreground consists of rough, dry terrain with rocks and some reddish-green shrubs. A dark, flat cloud hangs low on the horizon.