The long abandoned Foggintor Quarry offers a fun and easy Dartmoor adventure. There are plenty of buildings (now ruins) to explore, but it’s the main quarry site itself which is the real highlight. The water filled quarry has a desolate beauty, with craggy walls and a mirror like reflection on a calm day.
It’s incredibly quiet and peaceful, some might think it’s so quiet as to be a little eerie, but personally we found it a wonderful place to sit and relax. If you’re feeling adventurous, it’s also a great spot for a wild swim!
Here’s everything you need to know about visiting Foggintor Quarry.
The walk to Foggintor Quarry
The stats
Distance: 1.7 miles (2.8km) return
Elevation gain: 30m
Difficulty: Easy
The walk to Foggintor Quarry is all on a very easy, almost flat track.
Once you reach the quarry, exploring is all at your own risk - as stated by the warning sign - but access is allowed, unlike many other similar sites in the area.
The trail
From the parking area (details below) the walk passes through the gate and continues along a gravel road. The road is private, so though it’s in great condition, you must leave your car outside the gate.
The road is fairly level and it’s a very leisurely stroll through open farmland. There were an awful lot of cows, which always unnerves me slightly, but happily they all ignored us!
After 500m you’ll pass through a second gate and this is where we started seeing so many gorgeous Dartmoor ponies. We were lucky enough to visit in summer and got to enjoy all the cute little foals as well.
The walk continues to be flat and easy, and after a further 800m (1.3km from the car park) you’ll reach the first of the abandoned buildings.
There’s not much to see, but it’s quite atmospheric nonetheless and makes for some nice photo ops. A little further along the road you’ll reach several more ruins.
However it’s opposite the first abandoned building where you’ll see the trail heading left into the quarry site.
From here it’s just 100m before you reach the quarry. This section of track is gravel and a little uneven in places, but still very easy (and flat).
Exploring Foggintor Quarry
The quarry is surprisingly beautiful. I never used to think of quarries as being scenic, but having now explored a few in the area, I have definitely changed my mind.
The steep jagged cliff walls are dramatic and the water inside offers the perfect reflection on a calm day. However, it was the silence that struck me the most. You could almost hear a pin drop!
That combined with the scenery made it a very atmospheric spot to sit and relax.
The silence was only broken when we spoke, at which point the sound reverberated around the quarry and we could even hear each other hundreds of metres away!
You can walk around the whole quarry on a narrow gravel path. It undulates and is not maintained, but easy enough, especially in dry conditions.
Swimming at Foggintor Quarry
Foggintor Quarry was my first ever quarry swim! I’d planned to swim at nearby (ish) Meldon Quarry earlier on in the week, but we arrived to find no swimming signs. Happily this was not the case at Foggintor.
There is a warning sign about exploring the quarry at your own risk, but on accepting that, you are good to go.
Accessing the water is pretty easy. You have to walk down a couple of rocks which are grippy when dry, and then there are a couple of slippery rocks at the beginning of the pool before it deepens very quickly. I always just lower myself in and crab along if the rocks are slippery and then you have zero chance of slipping.
The water is very deep almost instantly, and perfect for a long swim. There are some rocks scattered throughout the water, but generally you can see them and there are good stretches with none at all, so it’s nice and leisurely.
In terms of temperature, it’s actually pretty warm, by UK standards anyway! It gets a lot of sun and the water is more still than most wild swimming spots, which have cascades and fast moving water.
If you’ve not done much wild swimming in the UK, you might still find it cold, but generally it’s a lot warmer than most. I’ll caveat this by saying we visited in July!
Overall it’s a great place to swim, I love the feeling of being dwarfed by the craggy cliffs, and it’s such a huge, pool which is definitely a bit of a novelty.
Parking for Foggintor Quarry
The gravel car park for Foggintor Quarry can be found on B3357 just after Merrivale, postcode: PL20 6SS (Foggintor Quarry is also marked on Google Maps).
There’s only room for a handful of cars, but there’s some additional parking on the opposite side of the road. There are no facilities at the car park or quarry (including toilets) so you’ll need to plan accordingly and carry all rubbish out with you.
The parking area is located approximately 30 minutes from Widecombe in the Moor, 35 minutes from Ashburton and 35 minutes from Okehampton.
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