Round cairn near Hound Tor

Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1010781) describes a round cairn attached to an enclosure on a gentle east-facing slope above Gallaven Mire. The mound is 8 metres across and up to 0.6 metres high. It is almost certainly the cairn the Dartmoor Exploration Committee excavated in 1902, and because no earthworks from that work survive, the excavators must have reshaped the mound into its present smooth outline. The dig found a large cist, 2.1 metres by 1.3 metres, containing a circular pit 0.46 metres deep that held wood charcoal. It lies in the parish of Throwleigh, about 0.7 km north-east of Wild Tor.

The cairn is attached to an enclosure wall that partly surrounds an area 130 metres east to west by 105 metres north to south. Only three sides are visible, and the south side was never finished or survives as a buried feature. The east length is a rubble wall 1.4 metres wide and up to 0.5 metres high, the north a bank 3 metres wide and 0.5 metres high, and the west a lyncheted bank 3.7 metres wide overall. Field evidence suggests the cairn and the enclosure are of the same date, so the enclosure may have served some ritual purpose.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1010781, which cites Butler, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities, vol 2 (1990), page 149, Baring-Gould, Eighth Report of the Dartmoor Exploration Committee (Devonshire Association Transactions, vol 34, 1902), page 164, the National Archaeological Record (SX68NW9), fieldwork for the Monuments Protection Programme by S. Gerrard, and the Devon County Sites and Monuments Register (SX68NW2, 1986).

• Period: Bronze Age
• Status: Scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1010781)
• Grid reference: SX 6287 8814 (approximate, from the listing's coordinates)