Oval enclosure in Boro' Wood

Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1002611) describes an enclosure on a prominent east-facing slope overlooking the valley of the River Ashburn. A single stony bank up to 9 metres wide and 1.5 metres high surrounds an oval inside about 256 metres long by 160 metres wide. Later stone quarrying has disturbed the bank, so it survives unevenly. It lies in the parish of Ashburton, about 1.8 km north-west of Ashburton.

Inside are many humps, hollows and platforms of different sizes that have been put down variously to occupation sites, charcoal burners' stands, mining, or natural features left by several hundred years of tree planting. A small pit near the centre and a short trench with a spoil dump in the south probably come from mineral prospecting of unknown date. To the north-west an open shaft with a ring of spoil belongs to the 19th-century Arundell or Druid Mine to the west, which worked from 1852 into the 1870s, and a circular earthwork platform north of the shaft would have held a horse whim for raising and lowering materials. Narrow slit trenches in the south-east quarter may come from military training, though none is known to have taken place in Boro' Wood.

The enclosure has been read as a prehistoric hillfort, a medieval stock enclosure, a copper mine or a woodland bank. It existed by at least 1605, when maps show it labelled a castle. A spindle whorl found in the bank, of unclear date, may point to a domestic or farming use.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1002611 (updated 12 November 2015), which cites PastScape 445328.

• Period: Medieval
• Status: Scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1002611)
• Grid reference: SX 7486 7160 (approximate, from the listing's coordinates)