Historic Dartmoor

Shoveldon, Shuggledown, Shuffledown or Shovel Down as the Ordnance Survey insist on recording it is another of Dartmoor’s finest prehistoric landscapes consisting of settlements, field systems, cairns, stone rows, and slap, bang in the centre ‘The Longstone’. When viewed from the south west it is evident by its weary lean …

Just south of Lynch Tor stands a chaotic pile of granite which consists of an outcrop studded and encircled by smaller rocks and boulders, this is Limsboro Cairn. What at first appears to be an insignificant scatter of granite has in fact millennia of history lying back in the annals …

Just to the west of Chagford the North Teign river flows past the famous Gidleigh Park and then takes a sudden dive southwards. After it has recovered from this drastic manoeuvre it then flows under an ancient bridge known as ‘Leigh Bridge’ and today the bridge carries The Two Moors …

A I spent most of 1996 visiting, photographing and drawing all the more noted stone crosses of Dartmoor as preparation for my book, it should not be surprising that the subject is near to my heart. Therefore I was excited when I stumbled upon a photograph of a previously undiscovered …

One of the biggest travesties as far as Dartmoor archaeology is concerned must be the forestation of the area around Bellever and to a lesser extent, Laughter tor. The forest was planted by the Duchy of Cornwall in 1921 in order to replenish wood supplies and this effectively blanketed about …

If ever there was a top ten of Dartmoor kistvaens then the number one slot for me would be taken by ‘Kist 14a’ which sits on Lakehead Hill. Whoever was buried here must surely have been a person of high status to command such regal ‘burial furniture’. If anyone has …

When is a barrow not a barrow? Why, when it’s ‘Knatt a Barrow’ of course and this Knatta Barrow sits upon its own hill – Knattaburrow Hill at an altitude of 450 metres. Here we see some typical Dartmoor confusion as various topographical writers refer to a burrow as opposed …

Attempting to even try to explain burial tombs which are around 4,000 years old is virtually impossible and full of modern-day conjectures and beliefs. Clearly the very design of ancient tombs had some significance and meaning to the prehistoric mind but trying to say exactly what is impossible. It has …

‘ … and so along the Wallebroke, and thence in a line to Furnum Regis…‘ 1240 Perambulation of the Forest of Dartmoor.  On the modern OS map Furnum Regis is recorded as , ‘King’s Oven (ruin)‘, the devotees of the Arthurian legends will argue that prior to the 1240 appellation …

Back in the Spring of 2010 a group of ramblers from Plymouth were walking by the King Wall on the western flank of Great Nodden and decided to stop for a coffee break. Whilst contemplating their surroundings one of the group spotted the remains of a stone cross set into …