GRIMSPOUND

Hut circle at grimspound
This hut circle was somewhat unique in that it had an entrance-way that led around to the main portal which is the two upright stones at the upper right of the picture. The two large flat stones inside the hut circle on the left of the photo are in fact part of a group of four which I believe were either a shelf of the base for a bed. They fall on a dowsed line which identifies them as part of the structure. Some of the other huts had extensions which dowsed as storage areas, perhaps for grains or animals. The compounds near to the entrance would also probably have been for livestock of some kind.
Although we spent some considerable time here at Grimspound, we only managed to make a beginning at dowsing and recording what we found. I have used the three diagrams we made to illustrate what was done, so I'll start with the first one below.

The entrance-way to the hut above.
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The first thing I looked at was the retaining wall which dowsed as a double wall with an intervening cavity on each of the sections that I did. The hut circles proved to be most interesting as many of them had storage or pen areas attached to them. The hut, or living areas invariably had a ritual path beginning at the entrance and running straight down the centre to the opposite wall. I have shown these paths in green on the diagram. In hut 5, there were four flat stones close to the eastern side wall which fell on a dowsed line and I assumed them to have been a bed or shelf. This same hut also had it's entrance protected by a "hallway", the entrance to which was some five or six feet to the left of the hut entry. The ritual path however, still began at the hut entry and was not present in the "hallway". This layout was unique to hut 5. Hut 4 also had it's own unique layout in that both parts of the structure dowsed as living quarters and had ritual paths which were not on the same alignment. Were these close neighbours? or was it a two room house? Perhaps they had noisy children or a live- in mother-in-law. A couple of the huts also had what appeared to have been a hearth stone or quern close to one wall of the structure. The walls of all hut circles and storage areas dowsed as structures and are shown with a red line. The compounds just inside the modern entrance had no dowsed entrances but I assume they would have contained livestock or perhaps have been larger storage buildings.The limits of these structures are also outlined with red.. |
A further comment on the dowsed line inside the hut circles: these lines have been observed in every hut I have dowsed, Carn Euny, Chysauster, South Stack, Rough Tor, Merrivale and many, many more. By it's presence I can determine that the structure was for human habitation, rather than storage or animal shelter or confinement, in which case there is no path. This really needs to be verified at all sites containing these structures, but I'll bet on it's validity.
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This diagram is a combination of two that were made on-site, with hut 7 here being the same as the one numbered 7 on the diagram above. As before, the huts all had a ritual path beginning at the entrance and running to a point on the opposite wall. The storage areas had no path. The storage area associated with hut 11 used the outer wall as part of it's structure and a solid looking wall joined hut 12 to the outer wall. Huts 8, 9 and 10 were in a tight cluster, perhaps being occupied by a single family unit? There were no other ritual paths found during this day's activity, but much more time needs to be spent here to find everything. In fact, there are many more hut circles and structures that we just did not get around to, let alone the entrance and surrounding territory. As I mentioned before, the three sections of wall that I dowsed indicated a double wall and intervening cavity, but I'd have to do the whole thing to see if it was all that way. The experts seem to think not, but then dowsing has identified many stones to be connected with structures at other sites that are not on the official charts and diagrams. |

ANOTHER HUT CIRCLE
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