By: Blonde One
Dartmoor has its fair share of antiquities. We Blondes have visited cairns, kists, stone rows and all sorts of other interesting things from times long gone by. The Isles of Scilly has 239 monuments similar to these, meaning that there is a greater density of historical sites there than anywhere else in the UK. I have visited some, but by no means all, and found that they generally are well looked after by the Islanders with notice boards full of useful and interesting information.
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These in the pictures are known as entrance graves and there are about 80 on the islands. Apparently they were used as shrines as well as graves and originally were thought to be plastered on the inside walls and perhaps decorated. They date from the Bronze or Neolithic Age and are unique to west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Mr Blonde One and I had a lovely afternoon exploring them and reading up about them.
Little Miss Blonde is lucky enough to have a burial chamber like this on her route from home to work and she passes it every day. Bant’s Carn that she passes is an excellent example of one of these burial chambers and sits above the remains of the Iron Age to Roman settlement on Halangy Down.
I cannot imagine, whilst doing my 20 drive to work along a very busy bypass surrounded by tarmac, brick and concrete, how lovely it would be to have the kind of commute that she has every morning!
