Hut circle settlement on White Tor's north slope

Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1003184) describes an enclosed stone hut circle settlement and a length of the Great Western Reave on a gentle north-facing slope of White Tor, overlooking the valley of the Youldon Brook. Within it, 28 stone hut circles go with three enclosures. It lies in the parish of Peter Tavy, about 0.5 km east of Little White Tor and 3.2 km north-east of Peter Tavy.

The east enclosure is 36 metres east to west by 37 metres north to south inside, with a rubble wall 2.5 metres wide and up to 0.6 metres high. Its boundary passes under the Great Western Reave, so it is earlier than the reave, and the reave is in turn contemporary with many other huts in the settlement. So the monument is of more than one date, and what shows today records a complicated development through the Bronze Age. The six huts with the east enclosure are likely to be the earliest dwellings, though some smaller rubble huts in the southern enclosure, and an outlying hut and a length of wall to the west, may have been part of the earlier settlement too.

The southern enclosure is 110 metres east to west by 76 metres north to south inside, with a rubble wall between 3.2 and 4 metres wide and up to 1.1 metres high. Eight free-standing huts stand inside it, two are attached to short lengths of field boundary, and eight are attached to its wall. The western enclosure is 54 by 26 metres inside, with a wall 2.5 metres wide and up to 0.5 metres high, and two huts attached to its west and north walls and two more to the wall it shares with the southern enclosure.

Five of the 28 huts are oval, from 2.2 to 3.8 metres long and 1.5 to 3.5 metres wide, and the rest are circular, from 2 to 4.2 metres across. Their walls of stone and earth are from 0.3 to 0.9 metres high. Two huts have an annexe, eighteen are attached to boundary walls, and nine have visible doorways. Other remains nearby, some scheduled and some not, are outside this scheduling.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1003184 (updated 5 November 2015) (which lists no further sources).

• Period: Bronze Age
• Status: Scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1003184)
• Grid reference: SX 5432 7886 (approximate, from the listing's coordinates)