Watern Oke: hut circle and tinners' building

Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1011568) describes a stone hut circle and a rectangular medieval or post-medieval tinners' building on a gentle south-facing slope above the River Tavy. The hut is part of the large unenclosed Watern Oke settlement. It is terraced into the hillside, with a stone and earth wall 1.6 metres wide and 0.7 metres high round a space 2.3 metres across. The tinners' building has a rectangular drystone wall 1.2 metres wide and 0.8 metres high round a space 5.8 metres long by 3.2 metres wide, with a large earthfast boulder in the middle and a doorway facing east. It lies in the parish of Dartmoor Forest, about 1.9 km west of Fur Tor.

Both were partly excavated by the Dartmoor Exploration Committee in June and July 1905. There is no record of finds in the hut, which the excavators read as a cook-house. The excavation of the tinners' building strongly suggests it was built on top of an earlier hut, and it produced a large rubbing stone, pottery and a flint arrowhead. A corroded piece of iron, probably a knife, was of the same date as the later building.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1011568, which cites Anderson, 'Hut Circle Settlement at Watern Oke' (Devonshire Association Transactions, vol 38, 1906), page 112, and Gibson, Single Monument Class Description: Stone Hut Circles (1987).

• Period: Bronze Age
• Status: Scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1011568)
• Grid reference: SX 5695 8342 (approximate, from the listing's coordinates)

Historic England listed designation: A stone hut circle forming part of an unenclosed settlement, and tinners' building at Watern Oke