Lustleigh Cleave

The Lustleigh Cleave is a steep sided valley above the River Bovey in the parish of Lustleigh on Dartmoor. The cleave has been noted for its beauty since the 1800s, and features extensively in guidebooks.

Description
The Lustleigh Cleave is a steep-sided valley, approximately 2 mi in length, with the River Bovey flowing at the bottom approximately South-Easterly.

"Nothing can spoil the Cleave, where the granite, piled up like giants' castles, crowns the gorge, and is spread all the way to the stream below."

The valley is scattered with granite clitter (rocks strewn across the landscape), including rocking logan stones.

Notable features
The cleave contains Hunter's Tor, a granite tor, typical of Dartmoor, and location of an Iron Age settlement, and later Domesday book settlement of Sutreworde.

There is regeneration of temperate rainforest on the Lustleigh Cleave, following a reduction in grazing and swaling.