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Hut circle settlements west and south-west of Devil's Bridge
Princetown, Yelverton, Devon
Grid ref: SX 5762 7274
Main image: Photo: Guy Wareham (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons. Hut circles on Walkhampton Common beside the B3212, at the south-west enclosed settlement.
- Period: Bronze Age
- Status: Three scheduled monuments (Historic England entries listed below)
- Huts: 14 hut circles in these three entries
- Where: Walkhampton Common, 380 m to 900 m south-west and west of Devil's Bridge
Two small settlements lie close together on a gentle south-facing slope above the Meavy valley, 380 m to 400 m south-west of the bridge. The larger is an irregular enclosure 70 m east to west by 32 m north to south, with six hut circles joined to its boundary. The boundary is a lynchet, a bank formed by ploughing, up to 2.5 m wide and 0.4 m high. The huts are 4.2 m to 9.5 m across inside (6.6 m on average), two have two rooms and two have a doorway you can still see. A field wall 65 m long runs south from the enclosure, part of a field system that is mostly buried. Historic England notes that the deep peat here has protected what lies underneath. Just south of it is a single hut circle, 6.6 m across inside, an outlier of the same settlement.
A third settlement, 900 m west of the bridge above Yes Tor Brook, has at least seven huts on a south-west-facing slope. Every hut has a clear doorway, which Historic England calls unusual. They are small, 7 to 19.6 square metres inside (about 10 on average). Two pits in the monument, 0.7 m and 0.8 m deep, were probably dug in old prospecting on Walkhampton Common.
The larger unenclosed settlement of 36 huts lies north-east of these, between the bridge and Hart Tor: see Hut circles between Hart Tor and Devil's Bridge.
The three scheduled monuments
| Historic England entry | Grid reference | What survives |
|---|---|---|
| 1011253 | SX 57823 72668 | An irregular enclosure 70 m by 32 m with six hut circles joined to its lynchet boundary; two huts have two rooms. |
| 1011254 | SX 57856 72603 | A single hut circle 6.6 m across inside, in a bank 1 m wide and up to 0.4 m high, an outlier of the enclosed settlement to its north. |
| 1018931 | SX 57201 72970 | At least seven huts above Yes Tor Brook, every one with a visible doorway, and two small prospecting pits. |
Grid references are from the Historic England entries. Each entry covers one scheduled monument; a monument can hold several features.
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The 3 rings on this map are the separate scheduled monuments that make up this listing, placed from Historic England’s records. Tap a ring for its grid reference and a link to its official entry. The pin marks the middle of the group.
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