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Cairns & Barrows

Cairn S of Royal Hill

Grid ref: SX 6181 7194

Main image: Cairn on Royal Hill - 42 metres from location - image by Guy Wareham (CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons

This is a scheduled monument, a Bronze Age cairn situated on the high ground south of Royal Hill. Like many of Dartmoor's cairns, it was built as a burial monument during the Bronze Age, when the open moor was more densely settled than it would later become. The cairn survives as a distinctive stone structure in the moorland, part of a wider pattern of prehistoric remains scattered across this part of Dartmoor.

Today the site sits within the working landscape of the moor, where Bronze Age monuments stand among granite tors, moorland grasses, and the paths of modern walkers. Its scheduled status reflects its archaeological importance as evidence of how people used and understood this landscape thousands of years ago.

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“I be mazed 'bout blue." ... "Butter be mazed twice a year, they say" ... "It un't going to bittle." ... "Do it vitty, now.”

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