It was a bleak and bitterly cold day, walking on the moor. The fog blotted out the sun, the mist blowing across the fields. The wind “cut you, cut you like a knife”. We were following the ancient Two Moors path, picking our way around the peat bogs, not really lost but not knowing where we were.
The wind howled, at least we thought that it was the wind. Suddenly, a menacing, luminous form emerged from the mists. It is a great hound!
Oops, sorry. I got a little melodramatic there. It turned out not to be the Hound of Baskervilles. It was actually a peaceful, white Dartmoor pony. It was bitterly cold and foggy with cutting wind, though, and I expected the Hound to appear at any moment.
Yesterday, we ventured out on Dartmoor once again. In weather like this, the moor is a spooky and, at least to Liz, a romantic place. Where I think of luminescent great danes, Liz sees Brontë sisters. Never-the-less, it is truly an amazing place!
The day before, we were hesitant to venture too far from our starting point because we couldn’t spot the landmarks that our Ordinance Survey map referenced through the thick fog. We were a little braver today. We thought that as long as we could recognize the path that we were on, we would be OK and be able to get back to our car. After about 5 minutes, we were rethinking our decision. Alone on the moor, no discernible landforms and less than 100 yds. of visibility, we were a little worried. We were still on the Two Moors path but we hadn’t seen the field boundary stone that was supposed to be on our right. And then it was there, just before we came across the Hound, I mean pony. Reassured, we trekked on. Our goal was to find and explore Grimspound.
Grimspound is a mid to late Bronze Age settlement, probably dating from around 1300 B.C.E. It consists of 24 stone hut circles surrounded by a massive stone wall 500 feet in diameter and 10 feet thick. As we climbed the hill, we located and passed a few more landmarks. But, where was the site? The path was starting to get narrower and we started thinking that we had missed it in the fog. We decided to turn around and walk back down the hill, resigned to the idea that we may not be able to find it. And then, about 50 yards to our left, there it was, just visible in the fog.
It is truly an awesome feeling to step inside of a 3000 year old house! The huts are small, only about 9-15 feet in diameter and were probably just tall enough to stand up in. The wall surrounding the settlement is huge. From our vantage point in the fog, we couldn’t see the whole thing at once. One interesting addition to the site is a stone paved road that runs right through the center of the pound. This was put there by 12th or 13th century tin miners that clearly had no respect for their ancestors.
After spending quite a while at the site, it was time to go back to the 21st century. Having traversed the path once, it was relatively easy to find our way back. All-in-all, it was an incredible hike!
Click here to see our pictures from the Grimspound walk and our walk today around the Southwest Coast footpath near Salcombe, Devon: Pictures from Dartmoor and the Southwest Coast path
We'll be waiting to hear about the "dark and stormy night"
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