The tor is on private land and since 2003 access by the public has been banned, causing protests and mass trespassing by hikers and climbers.

[2] There is a legend that a witch named Vixana once lived in a cave at the foot of the tor that she had made the earth gnomes build for her.

She delighted in calling up a mist to surround any traveller who passed the bog at the foot of the tor, so they would lose their way and be sucked down to their death.

The Ramblers Association and British Mountaineering Council launched a campaign to publicise the issue, including a "mass trespass" of 20 people on 1 January 2004.

A public inquiry found in January 2005 that the land was in fact farmland, and the court ruling was overturned in May 2005.