Merrivale stone rows

• Period: Late Neolithic (Dartmoor's stone rows are mostly dated to about 2400 to 2000 BC)
• Status: Scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1013429)
• Rows: Two double rows, 182 m and 264 m long, and a single row 42 m long
• Grid reference: SX 55545 74795

The rows stand on a gentle south-west-facing slope of Longash Common above the River Walkham. The northern row is a double line of upright stones running roughly east to west for 182 m. The stones average 1.7 m apart along each line and the two lines about 1.1 m apart; most are between 0.2 m and 0.4 m high, but a blocking stone at the eastern end stands up to 1.2 m. A second double row 264 m long lies 24 m to the south and runs roughly parallel to it. Its stones reach 0.7 m, with a blocking stone up to 1.35 m at the eastern end, and the lines are about 0.9 m apart.

Midway along the second row is a cairn: a mound 2.7 m across and up to 0.3 m high inside a ring of seven upright stones 3.6 m across. A hollow in the middle may come from an early dig or from stone robbing, and two granite slabs in its base may be the remains of a cist. R. H. Worth thought it the only cairn on Dartmoor set along the length of a row, and argued that its place in the middle shows the row is about complete.

The third row lies south of the others and runs north-north-east to south-south-west. It is a single line of stones 42 m long and between 0.1 m and 0.5 m high, with a blocking stone at each end and a 3.5 m cairn at the north-eastern end that Baring-Gould said held a cist.

The same scheduled monument takes in more cairns, including a ring cairn and a cairn with a large stone cist, a 380 m length of the Great Western Reave and three hut circles. They are described on the Merrivale Antiquities page, along with the stone circle and standing stone a little way south-west of the rows.