By: Blonde Two
To my mind Grey Wethers is one of the moorland spots that most typifies Dartmoor’s lonelier and wilder side. As you head out across the moor from Postbridge, you leave behind you tourists, ice cream and the gentle East Dart valley and climb gently up towards the plateau that is the site for these two mysterious stone circles. On first glimpse of the stones, it can be difficult to make out what they are, especially if you visit, as Blonde One and I have, just as it is getting dimpsy. You could be forgiven for thinking that each of the 30 or so stones is a sheep and you wouldn’t be the first person, ‘wether’ is another word for sheep (or more specifically castrated ram but it is tricky to tell such details from a distance).
I had always presumed that Dartmoor’s Grey Wethers were the only ones in the country but I was wrong. There were once lots of the naturally placed grey sarsen surface stones found across the hills around Salisbury but now many of them only exist in buildings. I decided to do a bit of map research and found some named near to the Wessex Ridgeway and Avebury.
Map copyright Ordnance Survey 2018 OS Maps
There is also a hill called Grey Weather Law near to Peebles in Scotland. ‘Law’ here means a conical hill but I can find no evidence (apart from the ‘piles of stones’ mentioned to the north) that the ‘Grey Weather’ element of the name refers to anything other than the Scottish climate!
Map copyright Ordnance Survey 2018 OS Maps
If you haven’t looked at the Visit Dartmoor website yet, you really should. As well as places to stay on Dartmoor (including Dartmoor campsites), things to do on Dartmoor and top pubs on Dartmoor, the Visit Dartmoor website gives loads of useful information about Dartmoor activities, Dartmoor places and more Dartmoor walks than you could possibly complete in even 10 visits.
