The spectre of occult practices in the West reared its head yesterday as
police investigated a second case of ritual sheep slaughter near an ancient
Pagan altar on an isolated moor... continues...
It's now 2015 and there is still no access to Vixen Tor. It can of course be seen from the public access side of the wall, the cist too. But that was never going to be enough for me, the wall is easily got over, and with the land owners house far on the other side of the Tor we encountered no problems.
We scrambled around on the rocks for a bit, as young people do, then we plodded over to the cist and the nearby standing stone. This bit didn't really interest the kids so they made their way back to the car whilst I studied the cist. I'm not too convinced about the standing stone, surely it would be marked on the map. But the cist is a nice little thing, full of and partially covered with earth it looks like it's never been excavated. The capstone is in two pieces.
A very successful sneak.
No problem.
The tor, and the area around it, is still very much closed off to the public...and will be for the foreseeable future as the owner is not prepared to budge on allowing access.
The tor itself can still be seen, and is a fine lump of rock which changes shape as you view it from different angles (as most things do!). Some say it looks like a witch's head from one side and this ties in with the legend of Vixanna.
In the good old days I regularly climbed to the top, a tight squeeze up a gap in the middle of the tor. From the summit you could look out over the surrounding moorland , just like the witch used to do.
The best of the two cairns in this area can no longer be reached as the local farmer has closed the newtake on advice from his solicitor.This how ever has been over turned by the courts and it should be accessible again in the near future.The other one is slightly north and just to the west of the newtake wall,fortunatly outside of it so can be reached.Both these are only800metres south of the B3357so are easily reached.