Whitchurch Common streamworks and fields

Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1020089) describes two eluvial streamworks, an earlier coaxial field system and other remains on Whitchurch Common. The scheduling falls into six areas. The prehistoric remains include two round cairns, two ring cairns, two cairnfields, two hut circle settlements, an agglomerated enclosure, a simple enclosure and another field system, all probably Bronze Age (about 2000 to 700 BC). The historic remains include two medieval farmsteads, a medieval field system, a cache, two boundary stones, leats and reservoirs, prospecting pits, shelters, split stones, and Second World War artillery and mortar emplacements and slit trenches. It lies across the parishes of Whitchurch, Peter Tavy and Sampford Spiney, about 0.4 km south-west of Little Staple Tor and 1.2 km west of Merrivale.

The larger streamwork is 1.2 kilometres long, running here from SX 53517572 to SX 53797464, a gully up to 4 metres deep and 130 metres wide. In the bottom are parallel banks of spoil and the fossilised work areas called tyes, and analysis has found at least six distinct phases of working. Leats brought the water for the extraction and stored it in reservoirs near the tinwork before feeding it to the streamwork itself. At the upper end is a small tinners' building with a doorway and fireplace. The second streamwork lies west of the first, a gully 150 metres long with a few parallel banks. It is earlier, and two reservoirs were later built in it to serve the eastern tinwork.

The coaxial fields are part of a larger system over Whitchurch and Peter Tavy Commons. Here three main reaves run roughly parallel, separated by big blocks of land mostly outside the scheduling. At the west end of the southern reave a terminal reave has at least eight fields connected. Both settlements are about the same age as the fields. The northern has four huts, 10 to 83 square metres inside, with an irregular field system. The second, on the west slopes of Barn Hill, has six huts in an agglomerated enclosure of at least four parts attached to the south end of the terminal reave. The northern cairnfield has 27 mounds 0.3 to 1 metre high, associated with a settlement, and the southern has 12 mostly in a tight cluster at SX 53627499. Two more mounds are funerary cairns: one at SX 53977486, 0.5 metres high with a stone kerb 0.9 metres high, and one at SX 54177448, 5 metres across and up to 0.6 metres high. The two ring cairns are at SX 53487518 (a flat area 7 metres across with a rubble bank 2.4 metres wide, a berm and a ditch 3 metres wide) and SX 53707493 (a bank 3 metres wide round a space 11 metres across).

The medieval farmstead at SX 53707489 has a longhouse and three small paddocks, and the longhouse at SX 53697475 was cut by the Beckamoor Combe streamwork. The area was used for training in the Second World War, with four artillery and two mortar emplacements and slit trenches. The Grimstone and Sortridge Leat is excluded from the scheduling, though the ground beneath it is included.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1020089, which cites Gerrard, 'The Beckamoor Combe Streamwork Survey' (DTRG Newsletter, vol 3, 1992, pages 6 to 8), the 1991 Cox Tor survey plan at 1:2500, and fieldwork for the Monuments Protection Programme by S. Gerrard (1993, 2000 and 2001).

• Period: Bronze Age
• Status: Scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1020089)
• Grid reference: SX 5354 7507 (approximate, from the listing's coordinates)