DARTMOOR WILD TOR WILD CAMPING - WALKING THROUGH THE BRONZE AGE

Hello I'm Seamus, Outdoors Inspiration. I'm off on a wild camp tonight with Petra my German shepherd and Angus my son. We've just left Post Bridge and we're heading for Wattental, that's the plan anyway. On the way we're going to look at some of the archaeological remains on Dartmoor, some of the Bronze Age structures that are still out here, could be quite exciting, let's have a look. Come on then Petra, good girl. So we're not quite back at the Bronze Age yet, this is a beehive hut, there's a few of them around on Dartmoor, they were used by tinners to store ingots of tin, to store tools and perhaps even sheltering. I'm not sure the age of this one, probably 16th century, 17th century, I'm not sure, possibly earlier, it might be medieval. It's called a beehive hut because of its construction, so the walls would have been arched right the way up over the top. So we've reached the Grey Weathers, the Grey Weathers are two Bronze Age stone circles underneath Sitterford Tor, between Sitterford Tor and Firmworthy. So the Grey Weathers are very similar in diameter, they're two stone circles side by side. Many of the stone circles across Dartmoor are of a similar diameter to each other and there is a belief that perhaps that's because the same person, the same officiator had the same bit of rope and was measuring them across the moor at the same time. One story surrounding the Grey Weathers involves a new farmer to the area who wanted to start up a new flock of sheep. Anyway he turned up in Postbridge and somebody told him they'd sell him a flock of sheep and it was bad weather so they took him out on the hills out here and showed him these grey figures out on the hillside. The unscrupulous farmer selling the apparent flock of sheep took the money and scarpered, while the gentleman who'd actually paid the money found the next day that he was just left with a bunch of standing stones on the moor. I don't know whether that's a true story but I like to think it is. And so from here now we're going to head on up to the top of Sitterford Tor, we'll see at the top. Ready Petra? Let's go. There we go, top of Sitterford Tor. I think we'll stop and have a bite to eat now. See you in a mo. It's not my lucky day. On my way here we were coming down to Grassy Bank and I slipped over, I went completely arse over tit and landed in a big puddle. I've just stopped to change the battery on the camera and I put the tripod down in a, I say the tripod, the head of the tripod, down in a sheep poo. I'm sure that's supposed to bring you good luck. Anyway, where are we heading? Let's have a little look at this. Oh dear, where's my trusty pointer? So we're here at Sitterford and we're going to follow this wall up here, a little vericum, Quinton's Man, and we're going to head out to Whitehorse Hill. From Whitehorse Hill we'll drop down here, try and avoid the Wallabrook Head because it's going to be quite wet in there, and then we're going to camp at Wattontor for the night. Part of the Dartmoor Firing Ranges and so, just duck out the wind. These are range huts so the clearers will come out here, they make sure that the moorland is clear of stock when there's live firing and they keep an eye on things to make sure there's nobody out here. This one's had a lick of paint, it's looking in good order. What is disappointing about some of the MOD sites, and I know the military have got to do what they've got to do, but right behind here is a 4,000 year old Bronze Age burial cairn which they've been plonked right next to. So let's go and have a little look at that. Hey, get out of that! So rather disgustingly there's toilet paper in here with brown markings on it inside the cairn. This was once the resting place of some great chieftain on Dartmoor 4,000 years ago on a prominent hilltop and somebody goes and does a poo in it and doesn't even bother to bury it. Worse still, I think Petra might have snaffled some of it. So in respect of firing on Dartmoor, range firing and the MOD activities, they do publicize the times of firing. There are a total of four ranges on Dartmoor, one of which is a dry firing range where there's no live activity. You can find the times of firing and which ranges are active when on the MOD website. I'll put a link in the description below so that you can find that. It's very wet and peaty out here. This is a Bronze Age kist, a burial chamber, and it's quite significant in terms of the archaeology on Dartmoor, this particular one on Whitehorse Hill. So I think this particular kist was discovered something like about 1990 and people tried to preserve it as best they could because it's eroding away in the peat out here. And a few years ago it was decided that something had to be done about it so there was a full archaeological excavation done. They believe it's a lady's remains that were here, a female's remains. They were wrapped in a brown bear skin, the studs from her ears were still there, there were pelt bags as well which contained jewellery as grave goods that were buried with her. Quite incredible. Now Dartmoor National Park's website, they've got a really good interpretive film all about this. It is genuinely very, very good. It's worthwhile watching and relating what you've seen here today and their film. So I'll put a link to that in my description below. It's worth a watch really. Come on in Petra. This is a Philpott's marker post and they mark peat passes. The peat's quite deep in places on what's called the fen, the northern fen, so to find your way through passes were cut and stone lay so that moorsmen could find their way safely across the moor. They're called Philpott's posts after Frank Philpott's. As you can see in some parts of the moor, the peat is very deep. It was of course an industry as well peat, so peat was cut for fuel, naphtha was made from it, the British Patent Naphtha Company was it, I think that's the right name, was based at Dartmoor Prison when it shut temporarily after the Napoleonic Wars and before it becoming a convict prison. And so peat would be cut in journeys, I think a journey of peat was about 50 yards long, special tools were used to cut that and it would be gathered up and dried, stored in stooks piles of peat and then sold. It was quite an industry for the for the people of Dartmoor of the day. This cairn has got such a commanding view over Dartmoor, over its surrounding landscapes, over Shovel Down where we know there are bronze age settlements and more bronze age artifacts, stone rows. The person that was buried here must have been of absolute social importance and significance, some great chief or other, and these rocks would have taken so long to pile up. Let's have a little look. Here we are, we're at Waton Tor now, there's a wild camper stopping on the other side, he's visiting from London so we're going to leave him alone and find a little pitch out all on our own. But it's a beautiful Tor, Waton Tor, the Thirlston this element is called or this part of it is called, absolutely stunning. We're going to go and find some water for our camp tonight, the Wallerbrook is just down here so we'll go and filter our water and then come back and find somewhere to pitch for the night. Good girl, good girl, clever girl, clever girl, yes you are. We're going to move off of Waton Tor, there's a few more campers turned up and I go wild camping to be away from people, so it's plain cold today, weekend you know, there's bound to be a few people out and about on the Wall, so we're going to head over here to Wild Tor and pitch up there for the night. I wonder if they did that in Bronze Age times, having to move hill just because you didn't like the tribe that's moved in next door. Vegan bolognese for supper followed by custard apple crunch and I'm unlikely to ever have anything other for my pudding while I'm out than the custard apple crunch, I absolutely love it. Vegan orzo bolognese, I think that's a sort of pasta in the shape of rice so here goes, that's okay. The other week I had a, I think it was a chicken korma, I can't remember, it was absolutely delicious, this isn't as good as that. It's quite chilly tonight, I've got a lightweight down jacket on, I'm on a really good winter mat and I've got a reasonably warm down bag that I'm in and I'm feeling the cold tonight. It's still August, I've enjoyed today, I've had a good walk, we've seen some sights haven't we? It's not the Taj Mahal or the hanging gardens of Babylon, but it's Dartmoor, it's my home and it's fantastic to see all that history piled up just out on my doorstep. There we go, it's morning, it's quite late, it's probably about half past six. The sun's risen, it's a beautiful soft light over the moor this morning and we're gonna have some breakfast and be on our way. We're packed up, ready to go. Petra's raring to go, we've left no trace, we've cleaned the site out, you wouldn't know we've been here. It's a beautiful morning so we need to go and find some more of those bronze age archaeological remains on the Come on then Petra, onwards and upwards. Good girl. Let me go for a swim Petra. Ready, here we go. Good girl. Petricum. Well everybody's relaxed, we've just stopped to have a bite to eat and make a cup of coffee and next we're going to go and see Scorehill Stone Circle. So the beakers were bronze age settlers, early bronze age settlers, who came over from the Iberian Peninsula and settled here in Britain. They are our ancestors, they dominated the landscape and they're called the beaker folk because of their very distinctive pottery, their drinking vessels and the urns in which they lay people's cremated remains in the burial sites that we've looked at. But Scorehill Stone Circle is certainly a beaker site, it's beautiful, quite lovely. We don't really know what its significance was or how it operated but we do know it's of great social importance to the beaker folk. It's always worthwhile keeping your eyes peeled and having a good look around on bronze age sites. I don't mean dig around but just have a little look for stone that looks out of place. Flint looks very different to granite and once your eyes are tuned to that, if you spot any, the likelihood is it could be up to four, four and a half thousand years old. Angus found a beautiful bronze age scraper and I found the fragments of a bronze age flint knife and parts of an arrowhead and all manner of things just by walking through the stone rows and observing as we go. It's quite amazing to think that somebody last carried that four thousand years ago, perhaps during a ceremony or procession where some great chieftain was buried here on Dartmoor. And that's the Long Stone, quite an impressive piece of stone. There are plenty of standing stones on Dartmoor, lots of stone circles and stone rows and double rows, plenty of bronze age features to see. It's worthwhile bearing in mind the amount of archaeology that's on Dartmoor and just taking in a small amount of it if you're taking a walk. For me it brings them more alive to realise that people have lived here for thousands and thousands of years and in fact three and a half thousand years ago there were more people living on Dartmoor than live here today. Quite incredible fact really. That now brings an end to our walk and our exploration of Dartmoor's history for the last couple of days anyway. I hope you've enjoyed what we've done. If you did please subscribe to the channel, hit the like, leave me some comments, I'll be very grateful. And if you like the inclusion of petrochem, the documented footage, I'll try and include some more but let me know about it. I'm ever so grateful. Cheerio folks. Onwards and upwards, on we go.