Dartmoor Exploration Committee

• Formed: by the Devonshire Association, out of its Barrow Committee, which had been set up to investigate barrows elsewhere in Devon
• Work began: summer 1893, by Robert Burnard and the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould; first report read at South Molton, August 1894
• Reports: eleven from 1894 to 1906, and a twelfth by R. Hansford Worth in 1935, all in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association
• Not the same body as: the Dartmoor Preservation Association, founded in 1883

The Dartmoor Exploration Committee was the Devonshire Association's team for finding out what Dartmoor's hut circles, stone rows and cairns actually were. Its first report, on Grimspound, says the hut circles had so far produced only conjecture and had not been dug with pick or shovel until the summer of 1893, when Robert Burnard and Sabine Baring-Gould began to examine them systematically. Their results surprised them enough that they asked R. N. Worth, R. Hansford Worth, the Rev. W. A. Gordon Gray and Dr Prowse to join them, and the group went on to Grimspound.

Dartmoor CAM lists later members as J. Brooking-Rowe, John Duke Pode, the Rev. George B. Berry, John Sparke Amery, the Rev. Irvine K. Anderson and Basil H. Thomson, Dartmoor CAM also notes that the Committee had nothing to do with the Dartmoor Preservation Association.

Sites our directory records as dug or put back by the Committee, earliest work first:

• Stone alignment, Langstone Moor: terminal stone re-erected in 1893
• Grimspound: the subject of the first report, read in August 1894
• Broadun enclosed settlement, Archerton: eleven huts part excavated in 1894
• Merrivale stone rows and cairns, Longash Common: a cist investigated in 1895 and a fallen slab stood up
• The Cemetery: Cosdon triple stone row and cairn: stones re-erected in 1896
• Lakehead Hill summit ritual complex: a cist part excavated in 1898
• Standon Down hut circle settlement: forty-three huts part excavated in 1901
• Four round barrows, Soussons Down: a barrow part excavated in 1902
• Round cairn near Hound Tor: a cairn excavated in 1902
• Watern Oke hut circle settlement: huts dug in June and July 1905

Putting stones back was part of the job as well as digging: the Committee re-erected stones at Langstone Moor (1893), Merrivale (1895) and Cosdon (1896), and Historic England's records for many Dartmoor sites cite its reports.

The twelve reports, with Dartmoor Walks holding a scan of each:

• First report (Grimspound), 1894: Transactions of the Devonshire Association, vol. 26, pages 101-21. Scan (PDF)
• Second report, 1895: Transactions of the Devonshire Association, vol. 27, pages 81-92. Scan (PDF)
• Third report, 1896: Transactions of the Devonshire Association, vol. 28, pages 174-199. Scan (PDF)
• Fourth report, 1897: Transactions of the Devonshire Association, vol. 29, pages 145-65. Scan (PDF)
• Fifth report, 1898: Transactions of the Devonshire Association, vol. 30, pages 97-115. Scan (PDF)
• Sixth report, 1899: Transactions of the Devonshire Association, vol. 31, pages 146-155. Scan (PDF)
• Seventh report, 1901: Transactions of the Devonshire Association, vol. 33, pages 130-138. Scan (PDF)
• Eighth report, 1902: Transactions of the Devonshire Association, vol. 34, pages 160-167. Scan (PDF)
• Ninth report, 1903: Transactions of the Devonshire Association, vol. 35, pages 143-145. Scan (PDF)
• Tenth report, 1905: Transactions of the Devonshire Association, vol. 37, pages 141-145. Scan (PDF)
• Eleventh report by Rev. I. K. Anderson, 1906: Transactions of the Devonshire Association, vol. 38, pages 101-113. Scan (PDF)
• Twelfth report by R. Hansford Worth, 1935: Transactions of the Devonshire Association, vol. 67, pages 115-30. Scan (PDF)

The publication is Transactions of the Devonshire Association. GENUKI also carries the Grimspound report.

Sources: Dartmoor CAM, the Dartmoor Exploration Committee | Dartmoor Walks, the twelve reports and scans | First report, The Exploration of Grimspound (1894), scan | GENUKI, The Exploration of Grimspound.