Spinsters’ Rock, north of Chagford on Dartmoor is a neolithic burial chamber, which is normally called a dolmen. Neolithic is the late Stone Age and this is from the early Neolithic part dating it to between 4,000 and 3,000 BC. It would originally been covered with earth and smaller stones forming a barrow, but this has weathered away leaving only the stones themselves standing on the ground.
The “three legs” are between 1.7 and 2.3 metres high and the capstone on top is 4.5 m by 3.1 m and is estimated to weigh 16 tonnes. This could only have been built as a communal activity, showing that in the Neolithic period Dartmoor society has reached some sophistication with villages cooperating in building large monuments. Not quite comparable to the pyramids, but Spinsters’ Rock is roughly a 1,000 years older than the pyramids!
The tomb, certainly containing a number of dead people would be inside the now standing stone structure. The name comes from a legend saying that it was three spinsters (this not meaning unmarried women but ladies who span yarn, wool spinners). One morning, while the spinsters were waiting for the local wool trader to come and pick up the wool, they decided to erect this dolmen before he arrived. Certainly an impressive job for the spinsters to complete before breakfast!
