Holne Moor coaxial fields and stone rows

Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1020487) describes a very large and varied area of Holne Moor: coaxial fields, hut circles and enclosures, a stone alignment, several cairns, historic fields, a medieval farmstead with outbuildings, clearance cairns, tinwork earthworks, shelters, leats, clapper bridges, pillow mounds, hollow ways, military slit trenches and stone-splitting pits. The scheduling falls into four areas. It lies in the parish of Holne, about 0.8 km south-east of Combestone Tor and 2.4 km south-east of Huccaby.

The fields are part of the Dartmeet coaxial field system, rubble banks that in places were altered when later historic fields were made. There are at least 27 parallel reaves running roughly north-east to south-west, many ending at the terminal reave that marks the southern edge of the system, with many more boundaries leading off to make smaller fields and enclosures. At least 58 hut circles stand in the field system, many in clusters that form settlements, with rubble or upright-stone walls round spaces 2.2 to 9.7 metres across. Excavation in the 1970s suggested a Bronze Age date for the huts and found at least three timber houses of similar date. Six cairns are probably Bronze Age too, mounds 3.6 to 18 metres across and 0.2 to 0.9 metres high, one with a cist of four edge-set slabs.

Beyond the south edge of the field system is a stone alignment of three parallel rows of upright stones, 147.5 metres long. Its west end has three edge-set blocking stones and two big fallen stones that would have stood up to 3 metres tall. It lies just outside the fields, and seems to have been left out on purpose, which suggests it was already there, and perhaps in use, when the fields were laid out.

Historic remains are abundant. A medieval farmstead and an extensive field system take up much of the eastern part. The historic fields mostly have ditched boundary banks and in places reuse earlier prehistoric walls, and in at least two places they were divided into strips by low rubble walls. Sharp-sided, flat-bottomed hollow ways cross the monument. Rabbit farming shows in several rectangular pillow mounds, and a few shelters, many built into older hut circles, show pastoral use. Tin prospecting left clusters of small rectangular pits and narrow trenches, and the deposits were worked by streamworks, openworks and lode-back pits. Several leats serve the tinworks, and two long leats cross the monument. The northern is the Holne Moor Leat or Hamlyn's Leat, cut in the early 19th century to supply textile mills in Buckfastleigh. The southern is the Wheal Emma Leat, built in 1859 to bring water from the upper Swincombe River to top up the River Mardle for the Wheal Emma copper mine near Buckfastleigh, a steep-sided channel crossed at several points by clapper bridges. The stretches of Hamlyn's Leat still in use, the metal fence of the Venford Reservoir plantation and a series of boundary stones are excluded, though the ground beneath them is included.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1020487, which cites Fleming, The Dartmoor Reaves (1988), pages 72, 77 and 87, Butler, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities, vol 4, The North (1993), pages 128 and 180 to 193, Fleming and Ralph, 'Medieval Settlement and Land Use on Holne Moor, Dartmoor' (Medieval Archaeology, vol 26, 1982), pages 108, 110, 119 and 123, and fieldwork for the Monuments Protection Programme by S. Gerrard (2000).

• Period: Prehistoric
• Status: Scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1020487)
• Grid reference: SX 6762 7139 (approximate, from the listing's coordinates)