HM Prison Dartmoor is a Category C men's prison, located in Princetown, high on Dartmoor in the English county of Devon.

Dartmoor Prison was reopened in 1851 as a civilian prison, but was closed again in 1917 to be converted into a Home Office Work Centre for certain conscientious objectors granted release from prison ; cells were unlocked, inmates wore their own clothes, and could visit the village in their off-duty time.

Main gates of Dartmoor Prison

In 2002 the Prison Reform Trust warned that Dartmoor Prison may be breaching the Human Rights Act 1998 due to severe overcrowding at the jail.

The Dartmoor Prison Museum, located in the old dairy buildings, focuses on the history of HMP Dartmoor.

* Decline and Fall, a novel by Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1928 makes thinly disguised references to Dartmoor Prison.

* Dartmoor Prison is mentioned in The Thirteen Problems, a short story collection written by Agatha Christie, and first published in 1932.

* Dressed to Kill, A 1946 Sherlock Holmes film uses Dartmoor Prison in the plot as the supposed location where three music boxes were made that contain a secret code for a criminal gang.

A cardboard replica is left in its place, which is left standing after the original Dartmoor Prison sinks with all hands at the end of the episode.

* Comedy Band The Barron Knights ' 1978 UK # 3 hit single A Taste Of Aggro, a medley of parodies, included a version of The Smurf Song featuring, in place of the Smurfs, a group of bank robbers from Catford who have escaped from Dartmoor Prison.

* Dartmoor Prison Museum

Princetown is best known as the site of Dartmoor Prison.

Photograph of prisoners at the Dartmoor ( HM Prison ) | Dartmoor Prison tied together carrying a cart out the gates, circa 1900.

* May 24 – Dartmoor Prison opens in England to house French prisoners of war.

Peter, a sailor, had been briefly imprisoned by the British at Dartmoor Prison during the Napoleonic Wars ; he broke jail, made his way back to the sea, and later left his ship in New Orleans, where he used his savings to buy then-inexpensive land northwest of Lake Pontchartrain.

In the " Tales of Old Dartmoor " episode ( recorded in 1956 ) of The Goon Show radio comedy series, Grytpype-Thynne arranges for Dartmoor Prison to put to sea to visit the Château d ' If as part of a plan to find the treasure of the Count of Monte Cristo hidden there.

On 12 December 1966 the Krays helped Frank Mitchell, " The Mad Axeman ", to escape from Dartmoor Prison ( Frank Mitchell should not be confused with the contemporaneous Frankie Fraser, " Mad Frankie Fraser ", who allied with the Kray's rivals, the Richardson gang ).

According to William Burt, in his notes to Dartmoor, a Descriptive Poem by N. T. Carrington ( 1826 ), the original tomb consisted of a pedestal of three steps, the lowest of which was built of four stones each six feet long and twelve inches square.

Tristram Risdon, writing in about 1630, said that Childe's Tomb was one of three remarkable things in the Forest of Dartmoor ( the others being Crockern Tor and Wistman's Wood ).

In the early 19th century there was much interest in enclosing and " improving " the open moorland on Dartmoor, encouraged by Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt's early successes at Tor Royal near Princetown.

Tanner was the honourable secretary of the Dartmoor Preservation Association, and this reconstruction was one of the first acts of that organisation.

A year later Dartmoor was converted to a Category C prison for less violent offenders.

The Dartmoor Preservation Association, or DPA, was founded in 1883.

He was the author of many novels, plays and poems about Dartmoor.

He was for many years the President of the Dartmoor Preservation Association and cared passionately about the conservation of Dartmoor.

The last active mine in the Dartmoor area was Great Rock Mine, which shut down in 1969.

The subject of warrening on Dartmoor was addressed in Eden Phillpotts ' story The River.

The first letterbox meet was held on Dartmoor, and they are now held twice yearly on " clock change days " ( in March and October ).

Sylvia Olive Pleadwell Sayer, Lady Sayer ( 1904 – 2000 ) was one of the foremost early conservators of what is now Dartmoor National Park, in Devon in the south-west of England.

Despite Lady Sayer's establishment background, she was a fearless and impassionedfighter in the defence of Dartmoor: frequently she deliberately interrupted army live-firing exercises on Dartmoor's military ranges, and in 1985 snubbed The Prince of Wales over the Duchy of Cornwall's management plan for Dartmoor, since this allowed for a continuance of military usage.

For example the Dartmoor granite was emplaced around 280 million years ago and as it cooled it contracted leaving a multitude of mainly vertical cracks ; these facilitated hydrothermal circulation which both chemically altered the rock surrounding the cracks and deposited minerals in them.

William Crossing ( 1847 – 1928 ) was a writer and documenter of Dartmoor and Dartmoor life.

From his earliest youth he was fond of Dartmoor, his early associations centring around the neighbourhood of Sheepstor, Walkhampton, Meavy, and Yannadon.

He was one of the earliest members of the Dartmoor Preservation Association, joining it immediately on its formation.

It was placed at Cranmere Pool on northern Dartmoor by a local guide in 1854.

The Museum is faced with Portland stone, but the perimeter walls and other parts of the building were built using Haytor granite from Dartmoor in South Devon, transported via the unique Haytor Granite Tramway.

He also proposed that a prison be built on Dartmoor to house the thousands of captives of the Napoleonic Wars and the later War of 1812, who had become too numerous to lodge in the prisons and prison-ships at Plymouth.

Dartmoor and other prisons had been built for them ; the prison most famous for straw marquetry was Norman Cross, Huntingdon.

Close to where the river leaves Dartmoor a dam was built in 1957 to form the Avon reservoir ( see Dartmoor reservoirs ).

It is a column of the Corinthian order built from Dartmoor granite.

The statue stands on a fluted column built from solid blocks of granite from the Foggintor quarries on Dartmoor.

It was first recorded in 1380 and was built to facilitate the transportation of Dartmoor tin by pack horses to the stannary town of Tavistock.

Covering, this grand classical style ensemble built from Plymouth limestone and Dartmoor granite, consists of grand gateway surmounted by statue of King William IV, there is the Slaughterhouse, then around a central dock basin, to the south Melville Square, a warehouse with a central courtyard, it has a clock tower over the main entrance, to the west of the basin is the Bakery with its mill and to the east the Brewery, with its cooperage.

Types include the Neolithic long house of Europe, the stone Medieval Dartmoor longhouse which also housed livestock, and the various types of longhouses built by different cultures among the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

The few buildings include houses built originally for quarry workers and the Dartmoor Inn, which sells Merrivale Ale.

On the ground floor of the museum a model representing a Great Western Railway branch line on Dartmoor, originally built in 1955 to showcase the trains being built for the Vale scene, is operated for visitors.

The main focus of the Dartmoor scene is a model of Brunel's timber Walkham Viaduct built by R. Guy Williams.

Excavations at other sites on Dartmoor have shown that such walls were probably built by small teams of men working simultaneously on a section each, as shown by differences in building style ; some evidence of this is visible here.

During the Napoleonic War a prison was built at Princetown on Dartmoor to hold French and American prisoners of war.

Main battles scenes were filmed at Burrator reservoir on Dartmoor in Devon and on the coastal cliff top near Challabought Bay, South Devon where a wooden fort was built.