Merrivale Walk, Dartmoor - Ruins in the Landscape with Stone Rows, Neolithic Huts and Old Stone Quarries

The majesty of Hucken Tor towers over the moorland above Merrivale and below King's Tor

When the weather is right there is no finer place in the world to be than in Devon and one of our favourite places to walk is Dartmoor and in early June, when we were experiencing wall-to-wall sunshine and blue skies, and with Will home for a few days from Torbay Hospital in the last weeks of completing his medical studies, we headed off to Merrivale near Princetown in the middle of the moor; to follow a walk around King's Tor that takes in Neolithic monuments and the remains of the pre-iron age stone circle villages built by the first people who lived here, together with the remains of Dartmoor's Industrial heritage centred around stone quarrying, providing the materials that created London's most famous landmarks, in a landscape that would have been familiar to French and American prisoners of war of the Napoleonic War and War of 1812, detained in Dartmoor prison near Princetown, whose foreboding walls and buildings still dominate the town today.

French prisoners of war being marched across the moor on 24th May 1809 - E.P. Coles

The route we determined to follow is illustrated on my display captured from View Ranger and shows the direction of march from the roadside carpark under the red pin that first took us past the Merrivale stone row and village circles out towards the wooded vale that leads up on to higher ground crossing several leats that run off the moor from King's Tor and flow into the nearby River Walkham.

We cut the corner of the route as we circled past Hucken Tor seen above and up and behind the lower slopes of King's Tor before turning back towards the road following the path via the Swelltor and Foggintor Quarries, about five miles and combined with the incline and warm weather more than earned us a fish and chip supper on the way home. 

Our walk route, more or less, from the carpark on the B3357 with arrows indicating our direction of march, taken from my View Ranger walking app.

An easy part of the walk setting out from the car park heading down to the wooded vale below the dip in the ground beyond and with the Merrivale stone row and village remains ahead 

Looking to our left we could see King's Tor in the distance 

Little stone tops appeared peaking above the heather indicating the outline of pre iron-age, village circle huts, with Merrivale stone quarry in the background.

The Merrivale Stone Row, dead ahead

Dartmoor is covered in these Neolithic remains for those interested in visiting them and don't attract the same attention or crowds as the more famous and much larger Stone Henge, but are never the less fascinating 'ruins in the landscape' that provoke the imagination about the people who built them and why.

As we made our way past the Merrivale monument the ground descends and the terrain changes with trees and undergrowth, often indicating proximity to water, and we soon found ourselves among them and walled enclosures either side of our path with the fields beyond shimmering with a lilac haze of early June bluebells waving in the summer breeze.

Did I mention bluebells, 'fouzands of em!' and absolutely stunning to see

Did I mention water, Dartmoor has a lot of it and it likes to flow down hill making things interesting for walkers watching out for crossing points and avoiding Dartmoor bogs.

An ancient path heading out towards King's Tor

After the pleasant shade of the wooded river valley the ground climbed back out on to the moor above Hucken Tor and towards the lower slope of King's Tor where we inadvertently took a slight detour, which we pressed on with - you have to be pragmatic when out walking and often include the occasional change in route!

The ground climbs out from the river valley as we get back out on to moorland again

On the lower slope of King's Tor

Moving around the back of King's Tor our path joined up with the much broader quarry track that indicated our route towards the old workings at Swelltor and Foggintor stone quarries, with heaps of stone blocks on the side of the path indicating our proximity to the remains of the old buildings.

A quick refreshment break and a chance to admire the view from the junction on the quarry track behind King's Tor.

These old 19th century quarry buildings speak of an early pre industrial Britain on the brink of bringing a new age to the world and always make me think of a much harder way of life for those people labouring out here for instance on the moor, probably not really able to enjoy the surroundings in the quite the same way we were.

As our path headed back to the B3357 Princetown Road, the remans of the old stone railway and its sequential sleepers with ruts created for the carts that carried the stone away on them were still discernible, evoking comparison with similar Roman stone built roadways with less predetermined wheel ruts left for later generations to pause with thought over.

 

The stone railway leading from the quarry peaks through the gravel of the quarry track.

Soon we were back on the road with the car park in sight and with the late summer afternoon starting to turn a bit 'dimpsey', a Devon expression describing the decline in light of the onset of evening, our thoughts were of pulling off the boots and tucking in later to fish and chips.

Another glorious day out on the moor and one for the memories.

JJ

Next up: Lots to come and it's back to wargaming, and I'm off to club this weekend to play Target for Tonight with an op to Hannover planned by Bomber Command in our penultimate game in the Battle of Berlin Campaign. Plus time away walking and enjoying getting out and about has taken me away from the shipyard but I have two sloops rigged and will show the first three that are done before working on the other three, and I have a post about a recent walk Mr Steve and I did looking at the Siege of Devizes and the Battle of Roundway Down

Dartmoor Walk - Lakehead Hill

 

With Carolyn taking a week off from work in the Bank Holiday week of my birthday and Will home for a few more weeks before he starts working in Torbay in his final year at Medical School, I jumped at the opportunity for us all to get out onto Dartmoor and some further exploration of some of the amazing ancient sites that litter the National Park.

This time we were heading to Postbridge, favourite stop for holiday visitors to the region and the moor and giving its name to the ancient clapper bridge spanning the East Dart River.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postbridge

https://ancientmonuments.uk/100782-clapper-bridge-postbridge-dartmoor-forest#.X1oD6XlKjIU

Postbridge shown on the map was the start point of our walk across Dartmoor

However  as amazing as the clapper bridge is, this time it simply marked the start of our seven mile walk across the moor heading first to another favourite haunt of locals and visitors, Bellever Woods further along the river and a spot we regularly took the boys to with other friends when they were younger.

The ViewRanger OS Map recorded the route we walked as we made our way between the various sites shown and circled with pictures in the post.

Carolyn and Will enjoying the fresh air of Dartmoor as we began our walk up from Postbridge to Bellever, looking forward to stopping for lunch

Walking along the Dart to Bellever with plenty of fresh air in the lungs soon fired up an appetite for lunch and so we found a suitable bench amid the trees to fortify ourselves before heading out from the trees towards the higher ground of the lower slopes of Laughter Tor where we planned to find the double stone row indicated on the map

Bellever is a popular stop in the summer for families enjoying a day out on the moor, sadly spoilt this year as large groups of not very considerate visitors decided to trash the place, wild camping, starting open fires and leaving heaps of litter, forcing Park Rangers and Police to close the area for a few weeks, to clean up. No problems thankfully when we visited!

Feeling fortified after a lunch stop we followed the path up and out of the trees towards Laughter Tor

As the path started to climb up from Bellever, the trees started to thin out as we followed the valley of the East Dart

With some food on board we were eager to get going as this was quite a walk we had planned with plenty of climbs over broken ground and hopefully plenty of ancient ruins in the landscape to spot as we progressed.

As you leave the tree line the views open up over the eastern moor with the heather and gorse in full bloom at this time of year

'The road goes ever on' 

As the path climbed higher, the top of Laughter Tor hove in to sight on our right

The tors on Dartmoor are amazing sites standing out on the hill tops with their bare rocky outcrops and make excellent reference points when monitoring progress along the route.

Not only that but the views across the moor can be stunning and reward the climb.

On reaching the slopes of Laughter Tor we discovered an amazing double stone row with several large standing stones nearby.

 

Just along the lower slope of Laughter Tor we discovered the Neolithic/Bronze Age double stone row nestled among the heather, with standing stones beyond.

When looking at these monuments you can't help wondering, why?, Why here? Why like this? And what was its significance to the folks who heaved these rocks around and placed them just so. 

Just a bit further along the track lay this poor little chap, not a mouse but a common shrew. These little chaps only live about twelve months, give or take the odd kestrel or owl, but are fierce little rodents, hence Shakespeare's reference in 'Taming of the Shrew'.

Our walk from the base of Laughter Tor took us down to the road near Dunnabridge Pound Farm and entailed a circuitous route skirting a large area of boggy ground, with Dartmoor bogs notorious and worth avoiding if possible, just read 'Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of the Baskervilles' if you doubt me.

All creatures great and small along the way, as we came upon these Dartmoor ponies, mare and foal making the best of the rough pasture.

Once around the bog we climbed to the top of Bellever Tor and the views towards Postbridge were stunning as seen in the picture below as we followed the path down before heading to the open ground to the left of the treeline in the valley below and climbing Lakehead Hill over which numerous neolithic remains were indicated on the map.

Three quarters of the way into our walk and we were feeling it in the legs as we crested Bellever Tor and followed the path down on the final leg. We were headed to the open ground to the left which leads up to Lakehead Hill and its neolithic sites.

Sure enough the map proved spot on as we soon started to see numerous standing stones, remains of stone circle huts and stone rows indicating a lot of people must have been living in the area two to three thousand years previously.

On the climb up Lakehead Hill we started to enter an area full of cairns and hut circles as well as yet more stone rows

Then just as we were about to descend to the road where we had parked the car we were rewarded with the final highlight of the walk which was an amazing burial cist set amid its own stone circle and with a stone row leading to it.

It didn't appear that large, which made me think it might have been for a woman or a child, as similar sites have indicated.

Again, I never fail to be moved by the age of these monuments and thinking about the people that built them.

The highlight of the walk came right at the end as we turned the path and discovered this amazing cist set amid a stone circle and row.

If you are interested in more information about this walk you can follow the links below and Carolyn and I hope to squeeze in some more before the weather makes moor walking a bit less desirable.

http://www.dartmoorwalks.org.uk/site/lakepics.php

http://www.dartmoorwalks.org.uk/walk/lakehead.php

Plenty of things to come on JJ's as I have another book to review, sloops and scratch built 64-gun ships and my third rates of renown are built and rigged. More anon

JJ

Dartmoor Walk - Drizzlecombe Ceremonial Complex

 

It's been just over a week now since I started to compose this post only to discover that it was not going to be quite as simple as I first thought.

The creative team behind this platform, 'Blogger' that hosts 'JJ's Wargames' have been rather busy in recent months redesigning the layout of the screen that I look at when putting the blog together, so much so that I am never quite sure what I will find each time I press the 'Create a new Post' button, and long familiar ways of doing things are suddenly thrown astray by the creative whims of the people that make the changes.

This last week was slightly different in that someone in the design team had managed to create an input system that caused all type inputs to be created with a double spacing between lines which rather messed up the final appearance of a post.

Someone then discovered a convoluted solution to press the space key at the same time as pressing the return key to create a new line, that overcame this issue and kindly passed it on to the wider community of bloggers, and now I find, as I sit down to compose this post two weeks since my last, that the error has been corrected altogether and we are back to normal!

Hey-Ho, who said life was designed to make you happy - anyway on with the blog!

The end of July saw Carolyn and I celebrating our thirty-second wedding anniversary and so to enjoy the day together we decided to make the most of the hot weather with another expedition to Dartmoor to explore the prehistoric Drizzlecombe Ceremonial Complex and the scenery depicted in the Spielberg film War Horse based on Micheal Morpurgo's 1982 novel of the same name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Horse_(film)

The OS Map of Dartmoor that I carry on my View Ranger App on the phone shows the route of our walk starting at the small car park, just below Gutter Tor, the first point we intended to head for and where we planned to stop for our lunch as we gazed out over the splendour of south Dartmoor towards the coast and the entrance to Plymouth. 

The view below shows the climb up from the car park with the rocky crop of Gutter Tor before us silhouetted against the azure blue of a July Devon sky with glorious temperatures to enjoy on our climb to the top.

We descended the tor after a half hour stop for lunch, enjoying the views to join the stone track below that leads out over the low-lying scrub-land around Gutter Mire as we made our way towards Ditsworthy Warren House the star of the movie.

 

The trail below Gutter Tor looking back to the car park

Our walk for the day would take us over the ground ahead encompassing Gutter Mire and Drizzle Combe

Abandoned in 1947, Ditsworthy Warren House dates back to the 16th century although the building that stands today traces its buildings back to the 18th and early 19th century.

It was built for the keeper of Ditsworthy rabbit warren when rabbits were bred commercially in the area for their meat and fur, making use of the poor agricultural land on Dartmoor but perfect for breeding rabbits, allowing them to burrow easily in the pillow mounds of granite stone, topped off with soil that were constructed for them around the house.

Today the house is abandoned and occasionally used by the British military who train in the area and is described as a stone tent capable of accommodating twenty-three soldiers, and the odd use as a film set as in 2010, depicted below with its false thatch in its starring roll in War Horse.

War Horse’s production designer Rick Carter said the location’s panoramic views gave “it a sense of being part of something huge and imposing – the expanse of skies, the force of the elements – and that created a beauty beyond what we had hoped for."

Following the path that leads around and behind the house we followed the route of the upper reaches of the River Plym that gives its name to the historic Devon city of Plymouth, carefully picking our way over muddy and fast flowing leats drizzling their contents into the Plym close by with the intent of reaching the higher ground beyond to see the amazing Bronze Age spine line of stones and the Drizzlecombe Complex of twenty-two cairns or burial mounds that surround it including the massive Giant's Basin Cairn one of the most remarkable prehistoric sites on Dartmoor.

The final leat crossing proved a bit too much for Carolyn who decided to head off along the course of Drizzle Combe (see map) to find an easier crossing, as I having made the other side with a bit of a jump, kept her in view as I made my way alone up the slope towards the stone row, immediately recognisable by its two large standing stones at each end, re-erected in 1893 in their original sockets.

The first view of the stone row and its imposing header stones at each end

A closer view of the stone row reveals the Giant's Basin Cairn directly behind the closer of the two largest stones.

Meanwhile Carolyn had found a friend as she discovered an easier route across Drizzle Combe to get up to the complex

The stones are massive when one considers the work it would have taken for these early bronze age settlers on Dartmoor to erect them and the significance these monuments must have had for so many burial mounds to have been constructed close by.

As with the stone row, the massive Giant's Basin Cairn reveals a structure that would have taken an enormous amount of labour to construct and suggests a person of very high status within the community.

The cairns consist of an outer and inner ring of stones in their construction, with a central pit.

It is an amazing feeling to stand amid the ruins of such an ancient site that must have carried a great deal of significance to the people that built it  some four thousand years ago.

As we headed up the slope of Higher Hartor Tor from the complex, the view back over the ground we had walked from Ditsworthy Warren House displayed the expanse of Dartmoor with the Plym and Drizzle Combe bisecting the valley below.

The view from the slope of Higher Hartor Tor, with the Ceremonial Complex and the courses of the River Plym (left) and Drizzle Combe (right) cutting across the valley below.

We had planned originally to walk up to the summit of Higher Hartor Tor befor cutting across to the ruins of the Eylesbarrow Tin Mine (see map above), but with a fish and chip supper booked for picking up on our way home and over an hours drive to get back we decided to cut across to the military track just below the ruins and our walk back to the car park.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eylesbarrow_mine

Ruins of the stamping mill of the Eylesbarrow Tin Mine

The military track leads back across the moor providing easy walking on our last leg as we made our way back to the car looking forward to the fish and chips that evening.

As you will see from the pictures the weather was stunning for our wedding anniversary walk and all that fresh air meant we were hungry after it.

Dartmoor is such a special place to walk and I am looking forward to sharing more of its amazing vistas and history in future visits.

http://www.dartmoorwalks.org.uk/site/drizzle1.php
http://www.dartmoorwalks.org.uk/resource/rows.php