← Browse Prehistoric Settlements · Browse the directory
Grid ref: SX 5853 6702
Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1010650) describes an agglomerated enclosure with hut circles on a south-west-facing slope north of Eastern Tor and east of the Sheepstor Brook. It covers about 6 hectares and takes in at least seven enclosures, forty stone hut circles and medieval farmstead buildings. The leat that runs to Sheepstor village cuts its south edge. Natural outcrops and clitter hide many of the details. It lies in the parish of Sheepstor, about 1.2 km north-west of Shavercombe Tor.
The main enclosure banks are earth and rubble, averaging 2 metres wide and 0.5 metres high, but up to 3 metres wide and over a metre high on the north side, where large boulders and slabs are built in. The hut circles have walls of earth and stone up to 2 metres wide and 0.6 metres high and are up to 12 metres across. Some are joined, some attached to banks and some free-standing. Some huts have double-faced walls, and the entrances, some with jambs, face mostly south-west.
In the south-east quarter of the enclosure are the remains of four buildings of a medieval farmstead, all rectangular and set with their long sides down the slope. They are 11 to 35 metres long and about 6 metres wide, the longest divided into three rooms, with walls over a metre high and traces of outbuildings against two of them.
Sources: Historic England list entry 1010650, which cites SX56NE-016 (1990).
Historic England listed designation: Agglomerated enclosure with hut circles and later farmstead at Whittenknowles Rocks
Contact us if you have information about this listing
Dartefacts is a database of Dartmoor sites with far more close-up detail than we can show here, and it is the best place to go deeper. Dartefacts is free to use, and nobody has to pay to look things up. If you want more, a yearly subscription adds 10-figure grid references, map zoom down to 1:25,000 and lists to tick off the places you have visited, and it helps keep the site going. We would encourage you to subscribe.
Be the first to share a thought about Whittenknowles Rocks enclosures, hut circles and medieval farmstead.
Share a thought“All around the hills were silent; and the long pale shadows lay, like flaws of calm on tidal waters; while the "holy circles," where unholy deeds had stained the moor, stood up, like ghosts that have no churchyard.”
Who wrote this?
Know another Dartmoor place, tor or landmark we should include? Suggest a listing, it is free.
Suggest a listing
