An evening walk in the Dartmoor mist

We've just enjoyed an evening walk around Sharpitor and Peek Hill with the Plymouth and District Archaeological Society. Misty and damp but we did see a lot of Bronze Age remains and, to bring us almost up-to-date, the remnants of a WW2/Cold War RAF listening post. Not the best of conditions for taking panoramic shots.

The mist is obscuring the ancient trackway that was used before the existing road was constructed under the Turnpike Act in the early 1800s.

These tombs are generally referred to as cists although on Dartmoor there is often mention of kistvaens or kists. It is thought that the word kistvaen has derived from the Celtic cist (chest) and maen (stone) aptly meaning 'stone chest'. The accepted description of a 'typical' Dartmoor kist is that it comprises of a four-sided stone chest with a covering slab and occasionally a paved floor. They were constructed of stone, quite often granite. There were two main methods of interring the deceased, either the body was placed into the stone chamber in a crouched foetal position or the remains were cremated and the ashes placed in an urn and interred in the floor of the pit. Many of these finds are dateable to the Early Bronze Age which ran from about 2300 - 1400BC.

Looking up to the top of Sharpitor.

And this is what it looked like when we walked here a couple of weeks ago. Photographs not taken from exactly the same spot but near enough. Lots of clitter formed from the freeze/thawing effects of the last Ice Age.

Imagine a thicker mist; imagine the damp silence accompanying it; imagine being alone; imagine some unknown shapes; imagine some strange and unknown noises. Now you have the stuff of the legends of the 'Beast of Dartmoor' and the 'Beast of Bodmin Moor'. I'm convinced that most, but not all, sightings can be explained by sheep or ponies. The rest? Who knows but I do like to think that the moors do not reveal all of their secrets.

And in the distance can just be made out a red light. Not sure what it was due to. It was on the road but brake lights would come as a pair? Spooky!

A Bronze Age hut circle. Larger than the norm and with an unusual cross wall in the centre. Lots of speculation about this but it was unlikely to be an original feature. It may have been added as a result of the hut being reused at some stage, possibly by tinners.