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

Stalldown Stone Row

Stone Row / Alignment

Fieldnotes

After another of the Blatchford Bottom settlements, this one with a suspicious bullock keeping a wary eye on me, I start to climb again, this time up to Stalldown. As I reach the crest, the tips of the northernmost upright stones of the row come into view. This is the tallest of Dartmoor's stone rows and the four uprights at the northern end are the tallest stones in the row. They are all about 2-2.5 metres tall and very shapely, leaning in slightly different directions, which makes for a very photogenic site. There are a couple more large stones lying fallen to the north, which may well have been part of the row – the northernmost is a large slab. What a lovely setting of stones this is, who could ask for more?

Following the row roughly south as it heads off the top of the hill, the stones become markedly smaller after those first few, and there is the additional treat of a small cairn- or kerb-circle adjacent to the row. Towards the south end of the row is a recumbent slab, which would have been much taller than its neighbours if erected and the final upright is a rounded, boulderish stone – it may be that the row continued beyond this point, but no uprights remain. Plymouth Sound emerges from the gloom to the southwest to show I'm heading in the right direction.
thesweetcheat Posted by thesweetcheat
23rd August 2010ce

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