The Beardown Man Standing Stone

Beardown Man c.1750 BC.

Dartmoor has justly been described as one of the world's greatest open-air archaeological museums and none of its many exhibits are more impressive than the standing stone known as Beardown Man [SX596796].

The menhir is made up of a single slab of granite and currently stands at around 3.5m [11ft]. However, according to Jeremy Butler, the peat here has grown by a least a metre since the menhir was erected during the Bronze Age. This would give an original height of the standing stone of about 4.5m [14.7ft]. The tallest standing stone left on the moor today is a 4.2m example at Drizzlecombe, Beardown Man being the second tallest.

The remarkable shard-like appearance of the standing stone as seen from the west.

The stone is sited at an altitude of 550m near Devil's Tor on the edge of the great peat bog that makes up so much of the northern moor. It is one of just three standing stones on Dartmoor that don't appear to be associated with any other prehistoric ritual features e.g. stone rows, cairns or circles. The remains of several small Bronze Age settlements lie nearby in the valley of the Cowsic river to the west but the settlements might post-date the standing stone by centuries.

Beardown Man with Devil's Tor, right.

The term 'man' is associated with a number of tall stones on the moor and is derived from 'maen', the Celtic word for 'stone' ['men-hir' has a similar etymology, meaning 'long stone']. Crossing was told at the end of the 19th century that, for the moormen who lived and worked on the moor, the stone represented the Devil.

It's the only prehistoric artifact on the moor that, for me, has a genuinely eerie presence. Many of the ancient sites have a powerful atmosphere redolent of people long gone whose lives and beliefs seem impossibly distant. But Beardown Man feels different. Like in an M.R. James ghost story, you can imagine visiting it on a winter's afternoon and inadvertently bringing some thing back home with you. It's a tremendous object, even now in the 21st century long after its original purpose has been lost.

Beardown Man from the east with rain falling over Great Mis Tor.

Was it a meeting place? A burial place? An object around which commemorations and rituals took place? Was it a boundary marker? Is its location on the edge of the vastness of the northern moor significant? Was it to tell people to go no further? Butler concludes that, like the other two solitary standing stones, it was probably "a memorial of some kind". I doubt we'll ever know. Around 3500-years ago, at least, the people who lived on Dartmoor in what we now call the Bronze Age dragged this enormous pillar of rock into a vertical position and here it still stands.

Beardown Man just visible on the horizon from Conies Down Tor.

Access: relatively easy from the car park at Holming Beam. Park up, descend into the Cowsic river valley to the east, crossing the wooden footbridge, then follow the peaty path towards Beardown Tors and then northwards to Lydford Tor. Then it's a relatively straight walk northwards, using the big stiles set in the wall of the Beardown newtake, to Devil's Tor and Beardown Man. Going straight there and back is about 6.5 km.

Sources:
'Crossing's Guide to Dartmoor', William Crossing, 1912
'Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities. Vol. II: The North', Jeremy Butler, 1991
'Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities. Vol. V: The Second Millennium B.C.', Jeremy Butler, 1997