Pillow Mounds (Warrens)

Pillow Mounds are low, elongated earth banks scattered across the moor, the physical remains of a medieval rabbit warren. These humped ridges, typically a metre or two high, were deliberately constructed to provide warren rabbits with ideal burrowing conditions. On Dartmoor's exposed slopes, where natural warrens would struggle, medieval landowners engineered these artificial habitats as a reliable source of meat and fur.

Walking among them today, you're witnessing the practical ingenuity of medieval moorland management. The landscape here bears the marks of centuries of human enterprise, a reminder that Dartmoor's seemingly 'wild' terrain has long been shaped by those seeking to live and profit from it. The mounds blend subtly into the bracken and heather, easy to miss unless you know what you're looking at.