This round cairn sits on moorland north of Hare Tor, built during the Bronze Age when Dartmoor's uplands were more densely settled and farmed than today. Like many cairns across the moor, it likely served as a burial monument or territorial marker, constructed from stones gathered from the surrounding landscape.
Today the site is visible as an earthwork among the heather and grass. There is no formal access or facilities, but the location is open to walkers crossing the moor. It forms part of the wider archaeology of this part of Dartmoor, where Bronze Age settlement evidence is scattered across the high ground.
Dartefacts is a database of Dartmoor sites with far more close-up detail than we can show here, and it is the best place to go deeper. Dartefacts is free to use, and nobody has to pay to look things up. If you want more, a yearly subscription adds 10-figure grid references, map zoom down to 1:25,000 and lists to tick off the places you have visited, and it helps keep the site going. We would encourage you to subscribe.
Hawthorn at sunrise - Cosdon Hill. Photograph by Glavind Strachan Photography
“A moor-man always speaks of 'things' when he means flocks and herds.”
Also on Our DartmoorChris Chapman — Documentary photographer born in Wigan in 1952, who moved to Dartmoor in 1975 and has photographed hill farming and village life there for fifty years. Dartmoor Society Award 2008.
Dartmoor quizPhotograph by Glavind Strachan Photography
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Hawthorn at sunrise - Cosdon Hill. Photograph by Glavind Strachan Photography