Consists of many square miles of open moorland scattered with distinctive rocky tors which are often surrounded by rock strewn slopes. This route takes you to the highest summits in the Dartmoor, which are also the highest south of the Brecon Beacons. Much of Dartmoor is used for military training including the firing of live ammunition so closures are often in place. Before travelling you are advised to contact any of the local Tourist Information Offices to check whether the area being visited is not subject to closure.
Drizzlecombe is rated by some authorities as the most important of all such Dartmoor prehistoric sites. Unique in that the site remains practically unchanged, except for the inevitable tinners’ diggings, since the Bronze Age and is heavy with the atmosphere of a time long past. Each of the three principle groups consists of barrow, stone row and terminal menhir.
A short walk around the site will soon show a geometrical pattern. The three stone rows each have a menhir at one end and a cairn at the other, and are aligned pointing to a fourth cairn. Another more distant menhir could also form part of the design, but this one has no stone row associated with it.
The three menhirs at the ends of the rows had all fallen before
the end of the nineteenth century. When they were re-erected in 1893 the holes
into which they fitted were deepened as a safety measure: so once they stood
even taller. The heights now being 14ft (this one being the tallest menhir on
Dartmoor), 10ft 6"and 7ft 6".
A kistvaen (burial chamber) lying midway between the south-west menhir and the river was excavated in August 1914 under the supervision of Hansford Worth; a flint knife and flakes were found in the grave, which was enclosed by a now invisible, kerb-type retaining-circle, the upper edges of the stones standing only twenty inches above the sub-soil.
The very large cairn to one side of the rows is known as "The Giant’s Basin". Many of its stones were taken by the Ditsworthy warreners and used for building their rabbit-buries.
There are different theories put forward to explain the reason for building/erecting the menhirs and the stone rows. It must have been quite an undertaking to transport and erect the large and very heavy menhirs. Their purpose is not known - suffice it to say that it can be assumed to have had some important ritual significance, to the Bronze Age builders.