Between the Tors in an ancient land

11.02.2025

We had moved the vans around to Belstone, another village nestled under the northern slopes of Dartmoor. The narrow lanes had proved problematic with a stone bridge allowing only a few centimeters either side of my van and queues of oncoming traffic backing on to the A382. This literally did ‘come with the territory’.

From the village car park we set off on a circular walk that would take us to two circles and a stone row. Through the lovely village we found the footpath just past the Tor Inn and started to climb in an arc up and around Watchet Hill. Up above the path below Belstone Tor was the small cairn circle of Belstone Nine Stones raised up slightly on undulating ground. Strangely there were seventeen stones here with most of them knee high and upright. There were faint traces of a burial chamber at the centre and a large flat stone just outside the circle that looked suspiciously like a capstone, being far bigger than the stones around it. The circle was a delight to the eye and the view was stunning with a snow covering on Black Down in the far distance to the west.

The path took us further into the moor past Winter Tor, Wild Tor and Oak Tor. We turned left off the track and scurried down through loose rock into a barren valley and up the other side to Steeperton Tor where we found ourselves surrounded by snow. We took shelter from the wind behind an old military hut and had a bite to eat before following the ridge north on our anti clockwise route. It was an hour’s walk from here on a clear path up to White Moor Down and the circle of the same name. I had read there was a treacherous mire just to the north east that at this time of year should be avoided. Luckily we were approaching from the south west and the ground was firm. The sixty six foot wide circle came into view on a flat plateau and as we entered it I was instantly convinced that this was a classic archeoastrological structure. There were eighteen stones well spaced with one fallen that may once have had a half stone just like those I’d seen in Western Scotland. If this was an ancient celestial clock then there would be an outlying stone somewhere nearby and sure enough looking southeast, the White Moor Stone came into view. I could also tick another box, as another hallmark for this type of circle are the three sixty degree views with distant topographical reference points.

We moved on avoiding the mire passing Hound Tor and Little Hound Tor, then dropped down off the ridge where below us amongst a herd of ponies we could see the Cosdon Hill Stone Row. This was an unusual triple row layout with a cairn at the western end and the remains of a double cist. There were larger blocking stones for each of the rows that stretched for four hundred and fifty feet down the hill. Without a terminal stone at the end it is hard to know how long the rows might have originally been. The distance between each row was about four feet and therefore possible that the rows served as dual avenues to and from the cairn.

It had been a long day’s hike and as the light was fading fast we were keen to find our way back to Belstone. We continued down the hill entering a wood at Skaigh Warren where we followed the River Taw for an hour knowing we would have one last climb up through gorse bushes to the village. It was hard going and we felt we’d earned some supper when the dim lights of the Tor Inn drew us in.