“Stone rows are a bit of a mystery and Dartmoor has the greatest concentration anywhere. There are over sixty of them dotted across the moor – and of such variety that they must have had many different functions.
I’m at Merrivale, right in the middle of Dartmoor and this site has a bit of everything: there are settlements all around – there’s hut circles over there – there’s a big stone circle with a huge standing stone over there – there’s cairns dotted all around – and these stone rows – right in the middle of it all.
And you want to see what’s in the middle of this row.
It’s only small, but this little funereal box, called a cist, does imply that this is the centre of a processionary pathway – so what do we have here?
A temple in the middle of a huge community?
