Hut circles between Hart Tor and Devil's Bridge

• Period: Bronze Age
• Status: One scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1011174)
• Huts: 36: 35 circular and one oval
• Where: A gentle west-facing slope above the Meavy valley, 450 m north of Hart Tor and between the tor and Devil's Bridge

This is the main part of a large unenclosed settlement of stone hut circles lying between Hart Tor and Devil's Bridge. A hut circle is the low stone wall of a round house, with the floor inside; the roof of turf or thatch has gone. Historic England schedules 36 here, scattered through an irregular field system. Thirty-five are circular, with insides 2.3 m to 7 m across, and one is oval, 6.3 m by 3 m. Their walls stand 0.3 m to 1 m high, 0.58 m on average. At least seven have a hearth, two are joined together, 21 have a doorway you can still see, two have a porch, and five are built onto the field walls.

The field system is low rubble walls up to 0.5 m high. Three plots can be made out in the north, and broken lengths of wall in the south suggest more. Historic England records another eight huts of the same settlement to the south and east, each scheduled on its own.

In 1895 the Dartmoor Exploration Committee dug 18 of the huts. They found a large amount of Bronze Age pottery, rubbing stones, flint scrapers, pot boilers (stones heated to boil water) and charcoal. Sabine Baring-Gould wrote up the work for the Devonshire Association (Transactions volume 28, 1896). Three 19th century granite distance markers from the old Hart Tor rifle range also stand inside the scheduled area, and are protected as evidence of the ground's later use.

The scheduled monument

Grid references are from the Historic England entries. Each entry covers one scheduled monument; a monument can hold several features.