
Which Dartmoor tor is this?
← Browse Cairns & Barrows · Browse the directory
Main image: Old Boundary Marker north of Birch Tor, North Bovey parish - 15 metres from location - image by A Rosevear (CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons
Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1021341) describes a round cairn and a warren boundary stone near the summit of Birch Tor. The cairn is a flat-topped mound 18 metres across and up to 2.2 metres high.
A large hollow on the south side marks where a road contractor took stone in 1925. That work uncovered an internal stone kerb, and two slabs of it can still be seen in the undisturbed part of the mound.
The boundary stone stands 10 metres north-west of the cairn. It is 0.8 metres high and cut WB on its east face. It is one of at least 16 stones marking the edge of Headland Warren, which covers about 246 hectares and holds at least 37 pillow mounds, five vermin traps, six rectangular enclosures and the warren house. The warren was in use by 1754 and carried on until about 1920.
Sources: Historic England list entry 1021341, which cites the Devon County Sites and Monuments Register (SX68SE90, 1993) and fieldwork by S. Gerrard for the Monuments Protection Programme (2003).
Contact us if you have information about this listing
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.
Be the first to share a thought about Round cairn near Birch Tor.
Share a thought
Which Dartmoor tor is this?
Know another Dartmoor place, tor or landmark we should include? Suggest a listing, it is free.
Suggest a listing