We almost lost the right to wild camp on Dartmoor, so I took to the moors for a weekend to explore the only place in England where you can legally wild camp.
Stuffing a tent, sleeping bag, and cooking supplies into a backpack and lugging it up the moors in the unreliable British weather is not most people’s idea of a relaxing weekend. I’d fallen in love with wild camping the previous summer during a two-week expedition in the Cairngorms with the British Exploring Society. I had since spent a couple of nights wild camping in the Lake District and, after a long summer of working a corporate job as part of my placement year, I was desperate to return to the wilderness. This time, my destination was Devon’s famous Dartmoor.
The day I hiked up into the moors I was pelted with rain. I had to wade through thick grass to avoid the judgemental cows that lurked on the path. Later, the sky cleared and I was greeted by rainbows and sunshine shortly before being scared to death by the emergency alert testing. With no other soul around (except maybe the cows), I was glad it was not an actual emergency, which would have really put my survival skills to the test.
After a tiring day of walking with my rucksack (called Lilly – my companion on my best adventures) I found a spot to pitch my tent (called Ivy) three hours before sunset. This was an unfamiliar luxury, as the illegal-but-tolerated attitude to wild camping in the Lake District means avoiding setting up until sunset. It also requires packing down at dawn, and camping high up and out of sight. As with any wild camping, of course, it also means leaving no trace.
The right to wild camp on Dartmoor has been questioned in recent years. The Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 allows “access… on foot and on horseback for the purpose of open-air recreation”, but lawyers for local landowners, the Darwalls, argued that this did not extend to wild camping. In February 2023, the High Court agreed that the Act did not create such a right.
This decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal and, in May of this year, the Supreme Court ruled that people have a legal right to wild camp in Dartmoor. The right, however, is subject to certain stipulations of responsible backpack camping: only by foot or horseback, only in designated areas, only carrying what you can fit in a backpack.
Arguments against wild camping are often around damage to the environment and disturbance of wildlife and livestock. “Fly camping”, where rubbish and tents are left behind, can be an issue. This does happen on Dartmoor, and it was during one of my first camping trips with the University Hiking Club that we came across an abandoned campsite that highlighted the downside of Scotland’s right to roam.
As I ventured across the rugged moors, I discovered all sorts of delights. I stumbled across round-leaved sundew, which is not only my favourite plant but also one of the UK’s few carnivorous plants. I dipped in streams which left me feeling both cold to the bone and calm in a way only wild water does. I stood in the middle of what had once been a settlement, now little more than stones and raised ground. Locking eyes with wild ponies as they gazed at me quizzically, I felt more like me than I have anywhere else.
During these experiences, I couldn’t help but think that, despite wild camping’s problems, banning the practice is no solution at all. How are we supposed to care about leaving no trace and respecting nature if our access to Great Britain’s little remaining wilderness is dictated and restricted by private landlords?
Do you need to be able to wild camp to experience nature? Aren’t campsites enough? I would argue wild camping has given me a much more intimate relationship with nature than is ever possible on day hikes. Through wild camping I’ve slept at 800m in the central fells of the Lake District, watching a gorgeous sunset and sunrise. I’ve had many morning poops with absolutely stunning views, I’ve washed myself in streams for lack of a shower, I’ve seen the moors illuminated by the blazing full moon – none of these things are possible at conventional campsites or on day hikes.
As a country, we have very poor outdoor education, and that has knock-on effects. Last year there was a record number of mountain rescue callouts. Is that any wonder when most people’s first (and sometimes only) experience of getting outdoors is a stressful and poorly planned Bronze Duke of Edinburgh expedition? I’ve posted pictures on my Instagram story before of cooking on Trangias while camping and had friends message me saying “You’re giving me war flashbacks to DofE!”
Walking the fells during a wild camp in the Lake District, I overheard a group of children on a school trip grumbling “literally anything is better than hiking up a mountain”. Even though I love wild camping and hiking now, my Bronze DofE definitely put me off it at the age of 14. I remember the frustration of overbearing teachers telling me I’d planned the route wrong (actually meaning that I’d not picked their preferred route). I remember the panic when we entered the wrong field and got chased by cows. Most of all, the sad taste of undercooked Supernoodles comes to mind.
Trekking across Dartmoor alone, I was struck by the power I felt as I carried all the belongings I needed to survive in the moors. I gazed upon the vast landscape before me and marvelled at the beauty of the country I live in.
So often I feel disconnected from my country and culture, and I think a lot of this is because of how disconnected we as a country are from our nature. In Dartmoor, a wild place inhabited long before England or the United Kingdom existed, when we were the “Land of Tin” to outsiders, I felt a profound sense of being home.
Hiking at sunrise up Yr Wyddfa; collecting drinking water from the Cairngorms’ fresh mountain streams; wild swimming in the waters of the Lake District; watching kingfishers dart across the Thames, where I grew up, on a quiet evening. It is in these moments that I have thought, “Wow, this is my country! Isn’t it beautiful? Don’t I want to fight for it?”
The legal battle to maintain the right to wild camp on Dartmoor has been about so much more than wild camping itself – it’s been about maintaining our right as the people of Britain to access and enjoy our own land. Maybe there will be less “fly-camping” if we just give people the chance to have that “pinch me” moment of realising just how special a place we get to live in.
All photographs in article are the copyright of Anna Foster.
