
Which Dartmoor tor is this?
← Browse Cairns & Barrows · Browse the directory
Grid ref: SX 6440 7765
On walking routes: Bellever Trail, Postbridge Trail, The Lichway
Main image: Lakehead Hill Summit prehistoric stone row - 12 metres from location - image by Sandy Gerrard (CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons
Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1018510) describes five cairns, two stone alignments and three cists on a gentle slope near the summit of Lakehead Hill. The scheduling falls into five areas. It lies in the parish of Dartmoor Forest, about 1.1 km south-east of Arch Tor and 1.1 km west of Bellever.
The northern ring cairn is a circle of upright slabs up to 0.4 metres high, 6 metres across, round a slightly raised area with a small mound 0.15 metres high in the centre. South-east of it a second cairn is a mound 8 metres across and 0.1 metres high holding a cist running north-west to south-east, 0.9 metres long and 0.55 metres wide, now backfilled and standing 0.4 metres above the ground. The Dartmoor Exploration Committee part excavated it in 1898 and found flint knives and scrapers, pottery fragments and charcoal. The northern stone row is a single row 22 metres long of at least 12 stones up to 0.75 metres high, running east to west. The second row lies further east, a single row of at least 11 stones leading west towards a cairn and cist. That cairn is 6.7 metres across, outlined by several edge-set stones, round a large restored cist of five upright slabs under a capstone 2.2 metres by 1.55 metres and 0.3 metres thick.
The southern ring cairns both have circles of edge-set stones. The northern is 7.8 metres across with stones up to 0.9 metres high. The other, a short way south, is 6.9 metres across and holds a central cist that stands 0.4 metres above the ground, covered by a capstone 1.7 metres by 1.28 metres and 0.15 metres thick.
Sources: Historic England list entry 1018510, which cites Butler, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities (1991), page 50. Sandy Gerrard has posted a pointer to his entry on the western row (stonerows.wordpress.com, Lakehead Hill summit) in several comments on the Historic England page; I have not linked it.
Historic England listed designation: Five cairns, two stone alignments and three cists, forming part of a ritual complex on Lakehead Hill
Contact us if you have information about this listing
Dartefacts is a database of Dartmoor sites with far more close-up detail than we can show here, and it is the best place to go deeper. Dartefacts is free to use, and nobody has to pay to look things up. If you want more, a yearly subscription adds 10-figure grid references, map zoom down to 1:25,000 and lists to tick off the places you have visited, and it helps keep the site going. We would encourage you to subscribe.
Be the first to share a thought about Lakehead Hill summit ritual complex: five cairns, two stone rows and three cists.
Share a thought
Which Dartmoor tor is this?
Know another Dartmoor place, tor or landmark we should include? Suggest a listing, it is free.
Suggest a listing