Historic Dartmoor

Walk a short way up the tiny Grims Lake stream and you will arrive at a large area enclosed by a circular wall which immediately suggests a settlement of sorts. This is ‘Grimspound’, a very evocative name if ever there was one but unfortunately the place-name is only a few …

Walk up the valley of the Langcombe and you will eventually come to a low, irregular circle of stones inside which sits a kistvaen. This is the sinister sounding ‘Grim’s Grave’ whose name shadows its origins. If you read the early writers such as Page you will be led to …

‘Such is the situation of the circles called the grey wethers, below Sittaford Tor, in one of the wildest and most solitary parts of the moor. Each of these consisted originally of twenty-five stones, of which nine remain erect in one, and seven in the other: the rest lie half …

Whilst thumbing through Burnard’s book – Dartmoor Pictorial Records I came across a chapter that I had never really took much notice of before. It is entitled, ‘The Great Triangle’ and opens like this: ‘Draw a straight line on the six-inch Ordnance map sheet CXII. N.E. from Sheeps Tor to …

Silently reposing in the shadow of the great dome of Cosdon lies one of Dartmoor’s enigmatic prehistoric features which is locally known as ‘The Graveyard’ or ‘The Cemetery’. Hemery writes of this feature; ‘On the elevated plain is an impressive stone row, rare in being triple,… The monument is known …

There is always a lot coverage and debate concerning Bronze Age activity on Dartmoor but you hear very little about the Iron Age. Is it possible that some settlement sites were occupied right through from the Bronze to the Iron Age. In later times the occupation type may have changed …

:”They are formed by a number of small reaves, much overgrown, which intersect each other at right angles, and in the spaces thus formed there are a few hut circles. These also occur on the outside of the low walls.”, Crossing, 1990. p.330. So speaks William Crossing about Foales Arrishes …

‘A rough road leads from the farm (Fernworthy) on to the Moor. Here, on a level piece of ground, we shall descry a fine sacred circle, which although smaller than that of Scorhill Down is more perfect. The stones are about three feet high, and resemble, though their height is …

‘Gradually we drop down to the Erme, and not far south of the point where the Redlake joins that river shall discover Erme Pound, a circular enclosure of rough granite, formerly the South Quarter enclosure for estrays.’, (Page, 1895, p.256). Erme Pound, the name sounds as if it is the …

For those who do not hail from Cornwall firstly let me explain why there are ants crawling all over this page for Emmet’s Post. The word Emmet derives from the old Anglo Saxon word æmette which mean ‘ant’ and is used by the Cornish to rudely describe holiday makers or …