The authors state that the name may simply be a compound of high and well (meaning spring), though they admit that the additional syllable at the end is hard to explain.

[6] High Willhays and Yes Tor are the only summits in England south of Kinder Scout in the Peak District to rise above 2,000 feet (610 m), apart from Black Mountain on the Welsh border.

William Crossing stated that High Willhays was the highest point in England south of Ingleborough in the Yorkshire Dales,[4] 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.