High Willhays Red flags are raised around the perimeter when live-firing is due to take place. High Willhays High Willhays or, according to some authors, High Willes is the highest point on Dartmoor, Devon, at above sea level, and the highest point in the United Kingdom south of the Brecon Beacons. In 1912, William Crossing, writer and documenter, said that the name "High Willes" had been thought to have derived from the word "huel" or "wheal" meaning "mine", but he did not think that very likely as old mine workings were invariably located near to streams. He suggested instead that the name
High Willhays England south of Ingleborough in the Yorkshire Dales, but since then surveys have shown that Kinder Scout is also higher (albeit less prominent). The geology of High Willhays, like most of Dartmoor, consists of granite intruded about 280 million years ago. However High Willhays is in an area of the northern plateau of the moor where the exposed rock has noticeably fewer of the large feldspar megacrysts that are typical of most of Dartmoor's tors. Each of the outcrops displays lamellar bedding. High Willhays is within one of Dartmoor's Danger Zones, areas used periodically by the British Army for exercises.