A squat twelfth-century Norman keep standing in the centre of the village, in remarkably good condition for its age. It served as a gaol and court for the Stannary jurisdiction — the legal system that governed Devon's tin miners — and later as a general county prison. English Heritage maintains it and entry is free. You can climb to the top for views over the village and the moor.
Lydford Castle
Free-entry Norman keep with a grim reputation for rough Stannary justice.
A story
Lydford Castle was infamous throughout Devon as a place of rough justice. Under Stannary Law, which governed the tin-mining industry, miners could be imprisoned first and tried later. A seventeenth-century poem complained that the castle kept prisoners "so long in hold, till they were dead and cold" — a reputation that outlasted the actual court by centuries.