← Browse Other Heritage Sites · Browse the directory
Icework at Sourton Tors
Grid ref: SX 5460 9001
On walking routes: West Devon Way
Main image: Photo: David Smith, Wikimedia Commons
Icework at Sourton Tors is a scheduled monument recording evidence of ice-working, a form of surface mineral extraction once practised on Dartmoor. The site sits on the tors themselves, where the working would have exploited natural stone formations and weathered granite. Such activities were common across the moor during medieval and post-medieval periods, leaving shallow pits and scattered debris as traces.
Today the site is marked on the landscape as a archaeological record rather than as obvious earthworks. Sourton Tors themselves command views across open moorland, and the wider area holds multiple layers of Dartmoor's working past. The monument's designation reflects the importance of understanding how communities have used and shaped the moor over centuries.
Contact us if you have information about this listing
Official record
Explore the area
Go deeper with Dartefacts
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.
Thoughts
Be the first to share a thought about Icework at Sourton Tors.
Share a thoughtKnow another Dartmoor place, tor or landmark we should include? Suggest a listing, it is free.
Suggest a listing