Now a case of finding my way back to Spurrells Cross and back to the railway station. Fortunately the path was more obvious going back and followed a beautiful stone row up the hill and back to the old trackway, a great way to spend an afternoon on Dartmoor
From West Glaze Brook it was a simple matter of following the stone wall, crossing three or four streams and up the hill to the old gates
I took the train to Ivybridge and began the long slog up to Spurrell’s cross, goodness I need to improve my fitness, and from there I couldn’t see any obvious path down to West Glaze Brook so it was a case of zig zagging among the sheep runs down the hill
The low remains of the round barrow adjacent to the long barrow on the SE.
The barrow from the east.
Seen from the north (the mound is oriented NW/SE).
The leaning slabs are being used as rubbing posts, judging by the churned up ground. Unfortunately this is damaging the southern end of the mound.
The huge slabs remaining of the chamber.
The profile from the SW.
Looking from the southeast
The tomb looking from the southwest.
The stones at the south end of the tomb looking from the south.
Taken from on top of the Barrow looking down on to the now collapsed entrance.
This is believed to be the oldest man made structure on Dartmoor, and is visible from all the surrounding cairns & stone rows. Far more impressive than photo’s show.
Heading downhill from Corringdon Ball stone row (30.8.2010), East Glaze Brook proves to be narrower and faster flowing than its western namesake, the water forced into a little fall by the granite rocks on its sides. Luckily it’s not wide enough to cause any real obstacle to progress. The long barrow, a skyline landmark for some time, has now disappeared beyond the brow of the hill.
There is apparently another stone row between brook and barrow, but my cursory look doesn’t reveal it and by now I am quite tired and hot, and still not quite at the furthest point out of the day, so I don’t press the point as much as perhaps I should.
Cresting the ridge, the slumped shape of the long barrow comes back into view. A real rarity on Dartmoor, this wrecked chambered long mound would readily recognise its Cotswold cousins, the principal difference being the much harder granite of its construction. Unfortunately, like many of its family it has been trashed. The chamber is now reduced to a collection of scattered stones, leaning and fallen uprights and a dismounted slab that was presumably the capstone. Cattle clearly trample around the remains, probably making rubbing stones from the uprights. The earth around the stones is being very badly eroded by these visitations. The mound itself is low and stands to a height of less than a metre. An even more trashed and reduced round barrow, cut across by a wall, sits quietly to the southeast. Despite all of this, the long barrow remains surprisingly impressive, partly due to its positioning against the skyline when seen from both east and west. The endless skies of Dartmoor and the solitude of this spot, far away from roads or houses, contribute to a strong sense of timeless place that many barrows in better states of preservation elsewhere lack. As ever on Dartmoor, I find it very difficult to imagine a woodland landscape in place of the wide open spaces of the moor. What change this mound has seen over the ages!
I spend a while here, in silence and solitude, but it’s a long, hot walk ahead and at length I return over East Glaze Brook to collect G/F. We head back to the old tramway bed at Glasscombe Ball, which as part of the Two Moors Way will take us all the way back to Ivybridge. It’s been a terrific day out, the Neolithic survivors at Cuckoo Ball, Butterdon Hill and Corringdon Ball, although less celebrated and visited than the numerous Bronze Age sites, remain an important and rewarding collection of Dartmoor sites to visit.
