Little Hangman is high and overlooks the village of Combe Martin at the western boundary of Exmoor National Park. Both cliffs lie on the South West Coast Path and are in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The cliffs are formed from a considerable thickness of sandstone known as the Hangman Grits (or more formally the Hangman Sandstone Formation) laid down during the Devonian Period. They were subsequently folded during the Variscan Orogeny and the strata are seen locally to dip southwards at between 25 and 35 degrees. There is an abandoned working for iron ore below Great Hangman at Blackstone Point.