Eylesbarrow reave: the Gutter Tor dog-leg

Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1011958) describes part of Eylesbarrow Reave, a watershed reave that divides the Plym catchment from the Meavy and runs from the Plym at Cadworthy Wood to the summit of Eylesbarrow, about 6 kilometres. It can be traced from end to end, but gaps along it mean it survives in separate sections. This section is a dog-leg of 160 metres across the lower north-west slope of Gutter Tor, through clitter, a low bank of earth and stone up to 0.4 metres high and 2.5 metres wide, with larger upright stones marking its course through the heaviest clitter. A gap of about 70 metres separates it from the next section south-west, on the north slope of Ringmoor Down, and one of nearly 600 metres from the next to the north-east, across the Sheepstor Brook valley and the north end of Gutter Mire. It lies in the parish of Sheepstor, about 1.2 km north-west of Eastern Tor.

Historic England sets the Dartmoor reaves in a large system of land division begun about 1700 BC, simple banks of stone and earth marking out territories, some of them tens of kilometres across.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1011958, which cites Fleming, The Dartmoor Reaves (1988), and the Devon County Sites and Monuments Register SX56NE-278 (1990).

• Period: Bronze Age
• Status: Scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1011958)
• Grid reference: SX 5749 6716 (approximate, from the listing's coordinates)