Tim Gent stalks ancient stones
AT SOME RAINDRENCHED POINT on this walk I joked that providing a route guide would require only three words: ‘Follow the stones’.
Admittedly this seemingly insubstantial advice doesn’t really work at the start, and you have to work your way up the Erme valley for quite a distance before reaching the Dancers stone circle. From here on, though, you really can simply wander alongside an incredible row of upright granite lumps.
Even today, following millennia of pilfering and disturbance, the Staldon row is reputed to contain as many as 1,000 stones. Often placed no more than a metre or two apart, the constituent elements of the monument head out across
the slopes flanking the river, before crossing it to extend as far as Green Hill. In all that’s a distance of 3.3km. Some claim it’s the longest stone row in the world. It’s certainly the longest on Dartmoor by quite a margin, and a very useful navigation aid.
We didn’t follow the Staldon stones as they met the rainswollen flow of the River Erme near Red Lake, choosing instead to head further upstream to cross at Dry Lake Ford (still a boots-off, near-knee-deep wade). We then met the stone row again on the slopes near Red Lake (a stream, not a body of water) before climbing in search of Western White Tor. From here, as the ridge led away into the gloom, it was back to stone stalking again. Now placed much further apart, and set up a lot later than their prehistoric cousins on the other side of the valley, these stones mark the line of a parish boundary. They still worked well as route markers, however; and as each granite ‘post’ faded into the low cloud to the rear, another would appear almost magically up ahead.