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Prehistoric Settlements
Hut circle settlement at Bishop's Meads
Grid ref: SX 6697 6551
On walking routes: Abbot's Way, Two Moors Way
Main image: Photo: Derek Harper, Wikimedia Commons
Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1002537) describes an enclosed stone hut circle settlement at Bishop's Meads, on a steep north-east-facing slope of the Avon valley. It survives as three roughly oval joined enclosures holding up to 11 hut circles and some later rectangular pens. The enclosure walls are 0.3 to 1 metre high and up to 5 metres wide. It lies in the parish of South Brent.
The huts are 3 to 6.8 metres across inside, with outer walls up to 4 metres wide and 1 metre high. Seven are attached to enclosure walls, two stand free, and two others are linked by a wall that also divides an enclosure. One hut seems to have been remodelled and is now D-shaped, and the largest has a dividing wall inside. On the north side three later small rectangular pens abut an inner enclosure wall. Historic England thinks these were probably 13th or 14th century stock pens belonging to a nearby monastic settlement downstream, hence the name Bishop's Meads.
Sources: Historic England list entry 1002537 (updated 5 November 2015), which cites Butler, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities, vol 4 (1993), and PastScape 441438.
- Period: Bronze Age
- Status: Scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1002537)
- Grid reference: SX 6697 6551 (approximate, from the listing's coordinates)
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