 A few of the remaining stones of the Sharpitor double row looking northeast. |
 Cairn with a pair of stones of a cist to the northeast of the stone row, looking towards Sharpitor. |
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The stone
rows to the northwest of the summit of Sharpitor may not be the most
spectacular of the eighty or so such monuments on Dartmoor but they
are probably the most easily accessible from the road being just a few
metres south of a small layby on the B3212. They consist of a double
avenue and a single row, the avenue being the better preserved of the
two. It starts with a low damaged cairn about 7 metres in diameter from
which the remains of the avenue emerge to travel 113 metres in an east-northeast
direction across a fairly level section of the northwest slopes of Sharpitor
hill rising just one metre in altitude over the length of its course.
Many of the stones are difficult to spot being small and partially covered
in earth and grass and it could be that other stones are now completely
buried, however despite English Heritage claims that thirty stones remain
standing with a further eleven fallen there seemed far fewer visible
when I visited. Close to the double row is a single row of about thirty
low stones which are also difficult to make out and again many could
now be buried beneath the ground surface.
To the northeast of the rows at SX55837068 and roughly in line with them is the remains of a cairn with an encircling ring of stones and a cist towards its centre (top right photograph). Nine stones form the ring around the cairn which is slightly elongated north-south presumably as a result of the internal slab sided cist also being oriented north-south, the cist measures just over a metre in length and about half a metre deep and wide. Although not directly connected to the stone rows the possible alignment between this cairn and the rows may have been a deliberate act by the builders of the monuments. Suggested Date: Bronze Age |
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