King's Barrow

We arrived at Hookney Tor at about 8.30 this morning under a very leaden sky and a cold wind blowing. Over to the east the sun was just appearing on the horizon and silhouetted against it on the top of this hill is a large cairn which is the burial mound known as King's Barrow.

These cairns have been dated to the Early Bronze Age which places them to between 2300 and 1400 BC. Some cairns are just markers of a place on the lands cape and some, like this one, marks a burial mound.

At the centre of the cairns was a burial that was either placed in a cist or a small pit and sometimes a cremation, No bodies have been found due to the acid soil on the moor that rots away the bones but grave goods such as pots have been recovered

Many Dartmoor cairns have had their stones used for other purposes such as the building of walls and cottages.

This burial Cairn is situated high on Dartmoor not far from King Tor and Grims Pound. Today it is a large grassed over cairn but seeing it this morning you could imagine how it would have looked like to our bronze age ancestors.