This walk: 2014-10-15. Ringmoor Cottage car park, longhouses, corn ditch wall, Legis Tor, vermin trap, Legis Lake ford and stepping stones, cist, Ringmoor Down circle and stone row.
Walk details below - Information about the route etc.
Google Satellite view of the area - including the GPS track of the walk (compare with the Ordnance Survey map plus track below)Previous walk in this area: 22 Feb. 2012.
Many photos taken during a 'recce' on a misty day on 29 Sept. 2014 and the "people" photos were taken in heavy rain on the walk.
Longhouse at SX 57000 66428, in the mist with, at times, about 20 yards visibility - there are actually two longhouses here, side-by-side ..... this is probably the Yeolaland tenement mentioned in records of 1566 AD concerning a dispute over pasturing .....
Photograph taken from inside one of the longhouses, in heavy rain.
A landmark cattle lick encountered along the track.
Downland Mag Extra livestock dietary supplement for cattle.
There's a gateway ahead, at SX 57135 65825.
At the gateway, a corn ditch wall - corn ditches originate from the time when Dartmoor was a royal hunting area and there was a need to keep the King�s deer out of the cultivated land. A stone revetted wall and external ditch faced onto the open moor which deterred deer and other animals from jumping over, whilst the sloping grassy bank on the inner face allowed those animals which had entered to exit again without difficulty. Source: http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/aboutus/news/au-geninterestnews/au_crosspr10
Second longhouse site at the farmstead at SX 57030 65799, with Legis Tor behind.
Legis Tor panorama.
Vermin trap, SX 57085 65544 ..... almost overgrown with bracken ....
Showing the top of the vermin trap (bottom left) and its position with regard to the tor .....
Happy, smiling faces at the vermin trap, with Jess standing on the cover stone .....
View inside the trap - as it was raining heavily, I decided against doing any "gardening" to improve the photograph.
Legis Lake ford and stepping stones ..... too risky to try crossing here today .....
The stepping stones - not so good, 30 metres downstream (SX 56747 65758) is much narrower.
Seen on the "recce" but not visited in the rain - Brisworthy stone circle (restored): J. Butler (1994), Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities III, The South West. 49.8 Brisworthy stone circle (fig. 49.17), pages 133-134.
With only four stones standing, the circle was restored by Breton and members of the Barrow Committee in 1909. Butler suggests about fifteen stones are still missing.
As previous photograph .....
Image © J Butler
1994. Reproduced by kind permission (ref. 29 Sept. 2012).
Brisworthy Circle .....
As previous photograph .....
As previous photograph, with Legis Tor .....
Image © J Butler
1994. Reproduced by kind permission (ref. 29 Sept. 2012).
Overview of circles, cairns and stone row on Ringmoor Down, also of medieval enclosing banks and ridge and furrow area from ploughing. Source: J. Butler (1994), Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities III, The South West. 49.21 Ringmoor Down West cairns (figs. 49.21, 21.1), pages 144-145.
Notes: (1) the farmstead at top right (SX 57000 66428) is the one visited on the walk and (2) the cist visited (see below) is marked as "2" on the figure above.
Believed leat, SX 56504 65620.
Ringmoor Down cist, SX 56592 65759, with remains of encircling ring of kerb stones from it's cairn ..... the west end of the cist is unusually constructed of two stones (at right of the photograph) .....
Another view .....
As previous photograph, with Legis Tor behind. J. Butler (1994), Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities III, The South West. 49.21 Ringmoor Down West cairns (figs. 49.21, 21.1), pages 144-145.
Image © J Butler
1994. Reproduced by kind permission (ref. 29 Sept. 2012).
See, we were here - and still smiling!
Ringmoor Down stone circle and row: J. Butler (1994), Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities III, The South West. 49.20 Ringmoor Down stone row (figs. 49.20, 20.1), pages 142-143.
Image © J Butler
1994. Reproduced by kind permission (ref. 29 Sept. 2012).
The circle is at the end of the row at the bottom left of the figure.
The stone row goes off towards the top right of the photograph ......another restoration, believed by Baring-Gould in 1909, originally about 200 stones, 369 metres long, some of this may have been added in error in the restoration.
Ringmoor Down stone row .....
Ringmoor Down stone row ..... seen from the circle .....
Ringmoor Down stone circle ..... seen from the row .....
Evidence that the row was once a double row?
Is this the terminal stone - it is not typically "across" the row as a blocking stone: the circle is indicated, on the skyline .....
Zoomed view to the circle .....
The present-day end of the row of standing stones.
Cairn at SX 56030 66203.
Red = GPS satellite track of the walk.
NB - The route taken after the "Double stones" was not that intended as in the heavy rain I did not look a lot at the GPS or compass - we were supposed to head uphill to the cairns (as we started to do) but we were diverted and reached the corner of Brisworthy Plantation instead of Ringmoor Cottage.
This walk can be reached by going from Dousland down past the Burrator Dam turn-off towards Meavy. Pass two right turns, each going into Meavy and continue straight on. Pass a right turn (to "Lovaton") and take the first LEFT turn to "Sheepstor". The car park is nearly 1 km along on the right, a small quarry just before the cattle grid and clump of trees.
Statistics
Distance - 5.26 km / 3.25 miles.
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