Skip to content

← Back to the directory · Dartmoor Map

Antiquities

Six pillow mounds in Crockern Newtake forming an outlying part of a rabbit warren on the western slopes of Longaford and Littaford Tors

Devon

These six low mounds on the slopes of Longaford and Littaford Tors are pillow mounds, artificial structures built to support rabbit warrens. Medieval and early modern landowners valued rabbits for meat and fur, and warrens like this one at Crockern Newtake were carefully managed. The mounds provided dry nesting and breeding grounds across the moorland terrain.

Today the earthworks are subtle features in the landscape, best read as part of the wider warren complex. They speak to how thoroughly Dartmoor was worked and ordered by its medieval inhabitants, before the landscape we see now took shape. Walking the western slopes of these tors, you are moving through land with deep roots in the moor's past.

Explore further

Recommended online resources for heritage sites on Dartmoor:

Photo: Alan Hunt (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons

Kind words

Be the first to leave kind words for Six pillow mounds in Crockern Newtake forming an outlying part of a rabbit warren on the western slopes of Longaford and Littaford Tors.

Leave kind words

Run a Dartmoor business, group or service like this one? Add yours to the directory, it is free.

Suggest a listing