Grimspound, Devon.

26th August 2004

I like ancient sites. I don’t think it’s just because I have an interest in archaeology, there’s something atmospheric about such places.

I have often wondered if they have such an atmosphere because of the ancient remains or whether people in the past chose such sites because of that atmospheric quality. I guess we’ll never know for sure.

Grimspound is the site of a community built in the Bronze age and sits in a location so desolate today that you wonder why anyone could ever have wished to live there.

Of course the landscape has changed a great deal since the invention of metal axes.

We came to this place under a dark and threatening sky which did little to welcome us and certainly did not encourage us to stay long.

As I looked for something to portray the bleakness of the spot it was a tiny splash of colour that caught my eye near the entrance of this hut circle. A bloom of heather bursting through as if to remind us of the life that these building once nurtured.