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Length of reave near Feather Tor
Grid ref: SX 5338 7440
On walking routes: Abbot's Way
This length of reave, a substantial stone bank or wall, is part of a coaxial field system that once divided the moorland around Whitchurch Common. Such reaves were built during the Bronze Age to mark territorial and land divisions, and their geometric layout suggests careful planning and communal effort. The arrangement of parallel and cross-cutting boundaries is characteristic of the organised agricultural systems that emerged on Dartmoor in prehistory.
Today the reave remains visible as a low stone bank running across the moorland, weathered by millennia but still traceable on the ground. Walking here offers insight into how ancient communities structured the landscape, and the coaxial field system as a whole reveals patterns of settlement and farming that shaped Dartmoor long before recorded history. The monument is scheduled for protection.
Historic England listed designation: Length of reave 290m north of Feather Tor, forming part of a coaxial field system on Whitchurch Common
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Photograph by Glavind Strachan Photography“In 1772 an Act was passed for the construction of a road for wheel traffic across the moor from Moretonhampstead to Tavistock. But for this road Dartmoor Prison would never have existed.”
Also on Our DartmoorThree Boys — Bronze Age burial cairns on open moorland, their weathered stones still marking the landscape after thousands of years.
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