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“The peat glowed as though it were red-hot, and night brooded on the eastern face of every hill.”
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Prehistoric Settlements
Parsonage Wood enclosure
Grid ref: SX 5011 8364
On walking routes: Devil's Cauldron Trail, Lydford Gorge, Lydford Gorge Railway Path, Lydford Gorge, Lydford Gorge Waterfall trail, Lydford Gorge, West Devon Way
Main image: Photo: Gary Knighton, Wikimedia Commons
Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1020341) describes an enclosure, taken to be a later prehistoric hilltop enclosure, on a steep inland promontory above the valley of the River Lyd. It is an oval 38.3 metres from south-west to north-east by 33.4 metres wide inside, defined on the north and west by a bank up to 6.4 metres wide and 0.7 metres high and an outer ditch 5.2 metres wide and 0.4 metres deep. The whole enclosure slopes to the south, and to the south and west the steep natural valley sides form its edge. There is no trace of an entrance. It lies in the parish of Lydford, about 1.7 km south-west of Lydford.
Sources: Historic England list entry 1020341, which cites Silvester and Balkwill, 'Hill-Slope Enclosures in the Lyd Valley, West Devon' (Devon Archaeological Society Proceedings, vol 35, 1977), pages 81 to 84.
- Period: Bronze Age
- Status: Scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1020341)
- Grid reference: SX 5011 8364 (approximate, from the listing's coordinates)
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