Author Topic: Sheepstor on Dartmoor  (Read 4761 times)

ramblingpete

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Sheepstor on Dartmoor
« on: 09:20:01, 19/04/09 »
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
« Last Edit: 15:58:20, 19/04/09 by ramblingpete »

titaniumdude

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Re: Sheepstor on Dartmoor
« Reply #1 on: 23:33:54, 07/05/09 »
A fine resting place indeed.  Condolences dude.  Lovely pics there mate.  Sheepstor and the surrounding hills used to be one of my fave places for a quick hill hit and wild camp when I was a kid.  Been a long time now and I hardly recognise it.  Guess I'm just lured by the fact I can get to Scotland as easy as the SW these days, but you've just sown a seed in my head.  Thanks for that dude.
« Last Edit: 23:35:43, 07/05/09 by titaniumdude »
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ramblingpete

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Re: Sheepstor on Dartmoor
« Reply #2 on: 00:41:03, 12/05/09 »
Thanks Dude - It's a lovely place and I regularly used to fall in streams on Dartmoor when I was a youngster - many many moons ago. It triggered memories of childhood visits down there.

www.walk-dartmoor.com

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Re: Sheepstor on Dartmoor
« Reply #3 on: 22:58:34, 24/04/10 »
I love your 'tent peg'. The terminal stone at Drizzle Combe is magnificent. I had never really noticed that amount of lichen before  :)

 

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