The Modern Antiquarian. Stone Circles, Ancient Sites, Neolithic Monuments, Ancient Monuments, Prehistoric Sites, Megalithic MysteriesThe Modern Antiquarian

Challacombe

Multiple Stone Rows / Avenue

Fieldnotes

24/7/04

Sitting at the car park below Grimspound with the map across the dash board we reckoned we had a pretty good idea where this row was. Much better in fact than the walkers we could see doubling back on themselves in the rough ground above Headland Warren. Were they trying to find the rows too? We decided to walk up to Grimspound and from there skirt Hookey Tor, cross the road and then pick up the footpath around the farm. After climbing for a few hundred yards we decided we needed to be turning to the left just as some gateposts came into view.

Gateposts?

Far from gateposts these were in fact, the eastern end of a fine 160 metre triple row of stones. They looked quite different to the pictutre I'd held in my mind's eye. The three black and white images in Burl's From "Carnac to Callanish" suggest a much more exposed position. Instead these stones were fighting their way through the bracken, helped it must be said by a recent burn to the vegetation.

We took dozens of photographs of the male and female pairs and walked the row several times. My most striking and lasting impression was that the triangular terminal stone on the horizon at the "top" of the row was almost wafer thin.

Challacombe is on a direct line and about half way between Grimspound and the Warren Inn and despite being clearly visible from both of these honeypots it seems sadly ignored.
RedBrickDream Posted by RedBrickDream
30th July 2004ce
Edited 30th July 2004ce

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