Yesterday saw me down in Devon saying goodbye to a dear old Aunt. We scattered her ashes on Sheepstor, a hill where she was proposed to many years ago. A fine resting place and whenever I see a burial cairn high on the hills I will think of her.
After a lunch we decided on a walk around the area and after looking at the map I realised that this area has some ancient cairns, stone circles, enclosures and stone rows. So after walking up Sheepstor we looked over the hills beyond and made tracks for the nearest circle. I used the Satmap Active 10 for navigation today and it was brilliant. The vegetation here is heavily grazed in places by the Dartmoor ponies and of course the sheep, and that gives lovely ground to walk across. But we were on open access land and the grass was tussocky and dry as a bone. It made for high stepping across the worse bits. There were also some drainage ditches that wind there way around the slopes - almost mini canals - interesting though. The gorse bushes were smelling weetly and there was plenty of birdlife around, with the Skylarks singing away. We found the first stone circle and what a suprise - it was actually 4 circles together, with an exit that runs to the SW. There had been an archaeology dig recently and the turf was a bit cut up. After this we decided to head over to a place called the Giants Basin, to have a look at the stone rows. We cut across the land and eventually this massive stone came into view - it looked like the biggest tent peg you've ever seen! The stone avenue was about 25m wide and led up to a series of stone enclosures. There were several big stones but none as big as the Giant - must have been 15ft above the ground - brilliant.
The old lane leading up to Sheepstor
A fine resting place looking over Burrator reservoir
The views to the North
Tussocky grass over towards the stone circles
the stone circles - I'm stood on the outer round
looking back to sheepstor on our way across to the Giants Stone
one side of the stone avenue
It is a giant .....tent peg?
looking back down to the stone circles
the tors next door -
and back to the old lane