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Main image: Photo: Guy Wareham, Wikimedia Commons
Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1020871) describes a cist near the summit of Whitehorse Hill. Until 2001 it showed in the edge of an irregular island of peat standing above its surroundings. Only its west edge was exposed, and the rest, including the original contents, was sealed under peat. The cist is 0.3 metres deep by 0.4 metres wide, and its capstone is in its original position. Early in 2001 a protective drystone wall 3 metres long and 0.9 metres high was built in front of the west edge, so the cist can no longer be seen, and the wall is included in the scheduling. The cist stands very high above sea level, and perhaps for that reason no settlements of about the same date are known nearby. It lies in the parish of Dartmoor Forest, about 1.8 km south-west of Watern Tor.
Sources: Historic England list entry 1020871, which cites Joe Turner's fieldwork, Whitehorse Hill Cist (2000). The Library now holds the Historic England Research magazine, issue 7 (autumn 2017), which has a piece on this cist; I have not drawn on it here.
- Period: Bronze Age
- Status: Scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1020871)
- Grid reference: SX 6172 8547 (approximate, from the listing's coordinates)
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Plate from Dartmoor Illustrated, page 174, 1900“The fogs are most deceptive and very tricky. They come on unexpectedly, and change the whole aspect of the surroundings. They magnify all things ; hills comparatively small appear as high mountains, and a small bird like a snipe looks as big as a pigeon.”
Also on Our DartmoorTwo hut circles near Roos Tor — Two stone hut circles, 4.1 m and 6.2 m across inside, terraced into a slope beside the Great Western Reave.
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