Of course we could just have driven and parked on the lane off the B3212; a short walk from there would take us directly to Grimspound.  But instead we chose to walk there over the moor from Scorriton, which made for a much more dramatic arrival at this vast Bronze Age site as we approached it from the south-east over Hameldown Tor and Broad Barrow.  I had in mind Julian Cope’s description from his wondrous The Modern Antiquarian: A Pre-Millennial Odyssey Through Megalithic Britain (1998).

Approaching Grimspound from the South-East

 

Imagine ancient travellers arriving at Grimspound, but coming downhill from over the moor to the east, the great citadel on Hookney Tor high above to the north, dotted with look-outs and linked by the causeway.  Imagine the women at the water – the fast-flowing stream at the northern edge of the huge circle.  The water runs right through the settlement.  And mighty it is too.

‘The Modern Antiquarian’ – Julian Cope

Grimspound did not disappoint – it was only the weather that was grim that day, battering us with driving rain as we came down off the Tor to continue on towards Chagford.

The four-acre site comprises a circular defensive enclosure containing the remains of twenty-four hut circles, all originating from the Late Bronze Age.  The site is dominated by the heights of Hookney Tor to the north.

Hut Circle

Hut Circles Showing Entrance to the Enclosure

From Hookney Tor

The name Grimspound, of course, is a relatively modern invention, with ‘grim’ meaning deadly or savage and ‘pound’ an enclosure.  But there is ample evidence that this was not such a grim place in Bronze Age times, with the climate of southern Britain being much more temperate and the four-foot walls of the enclosure being more suited to herding animals than necessary for defensive purposes.  Nonetheless, on our visit nature succeeded in evoking a powerful sense of a landscape steeped in desolation and hardship.

I leave the final words to Julian Cope again:

Today I expected nothing so alive or so full of the ancient past as this.  This place reeks of the elements bursting forth.  I’m sitting at the edge of the south gate looking up at the great Hookney Tor citadel.  Here, the walls are high and the importance of the mountains in the relationship to the settlement reminds me of Mycenae.  Now, a full downpour is wetting my paper too much and I must leave this note-taking…

ibid.

Quotes – courtesy of Julian Cope and Thorsons

Images – the writer