Talking About Dartmoor
Arriving at Merrivale, I proceed to peel off one or two of my tour group…. ‘You’re going to be called, Sid the fish…. I’d like you to be Mac the Knife….and could you please be Wilma Weaver ?’
Collectively we move towards the rubble field littering the moor.
I select a gap between two of the larger stones and walk through asking everyone to do likewise. Immediately it becomes clear to the group, that these stones are actually an entranceway into a circle of stones. They go quiet……. It’s a hush… an intake of breath that I hear when taking groups into a great church. But here we are on Dartmoor… amongst the stones.
The rubble field stretches away for hundreds of yards on either side of us. It’s large!
I indicate that everyone should sit on the remains of this circle…’choose a rock’, I say. They all sit down and I step up onto one of the larger stones and quietly talk into my microphone.
Explaining that this stone circle is the remains of a Bronze and Iron Age roundhut, their eyes widen. ‘Look around’, I say. ‘How many more can you see?’…….. I love to get members of my groups to observe…to really look at what’s around them. And to understand the landscape. Their eyes scan the horizon and the moorland and they start to throw numbers at me.
‘There’s one over there’
‘I can see three up by the knoll’
‘Yes, I can some down there’.
They become excited as they spot roundhouses around them….ruins of roundhouses. The rubble scattered across the moors. Wild horses walking amongst some of them and cattle grazing in others.
I explain a little of the ancient history of this place which once housed a large community of people…. ‘Your ancestors might once have lived here’, I say.
‘Ok, let’s go for a walk and meet the neighbours’
Puzzled, they stand up and follow me out of the ruins of the roundhouse.
‘Sid The Fish, this is your home. I know this because of the fishing equipment discovered here under what was once the hearth. Wilma, you lived opposite. We found the stones that will have been suspended from your threads, keeping them taut. Mac, over there, on the outskirts of this village is where you skinned and butchered on a wooden framework. We found your skinning tools.’
They listen intently as we walk through the rubble field…. Imagining the life of our ancient ancestors.
Outside the village they ‘discover these parallel lines of stones and a standing stone ( menhir). Puzzled by these features everyone stops to explore and touch them. Straddling the lines of stones is a partially stone capped hole in the ground. As a volunteer climbs down into it, I explain that was a tomb…a cist tomb. I then ask them to look around and observe. Immediately I hear the response I wanted.
‘There’s another over there!’
‘And a couple right there under the heather’
My group were now enjoying the landscape….and understanding it without my help. My job is done.
They’re free to explore before we return to the bus. Their eyes are alight!