Spinsters' Rock

Spinsters' Rock is one of Dartmoor's most enigmatic monuments — a Neolithic dolmen (burial chamber) whose three standing stones have endured five millennia on the exposed moorland. The capstone, tilted at an improbable angle, sits atop uprights weathered smooth by wind and rain. Local legend claims three spinsters built it in a single night, though the real story — of Neolithic communities leaving their dead in these stone houses — is equally compelling.

Finding it requires leaving the mapped paths and following the contours of the moor itself. The site rewards the effort: standing before these ancient megaliths, with views across open moorland in all directions, you're glimpsing Dartmoor as it existed when humans first made permanent marks on this landscape.