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Stone Rows & Alignments

Hurston Ridge stone row and enclosure

Grid ref: SX 6732 8265

On walking routes: Two Moors Way

Main image: Photo: Sandy Gerrard, Wikimedia Commons

Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1019577) describes a stone alignment, cairns, an enclosed settlement and a length of reave on a gentle north-facing slope of Hurston Ridge. It lies across the parishes of Chagford and Dartmoor Forest, about 1.9 km north-west of Birch Tor and 3.2 km south-west of Lettaford.

The stone row is two parallel lines of upright stones running downslope for 143 metres from a round cairn, with a blocking stone marking the lower end. Halfway down, a length of later enclosure walling crosses it. The cairn at the top is 5.9 metres across and up to 0.6 metres high, and a large slab on its north-east edge may be a second blocking stone. The second cairn lies at SX 67668350 beside an agglomerated enclosure, 4 metres across and 0.5 metres high. Both cairns have central hollows from partial early excavation or robbing.

The agglomerated enclosure is attached to the Hurston Ridge reave near its north end, two D-shaped areas ringed by banks 3 metres wide and up to 0.6 metres high, the northern the older and the southern disturbed by peat cutting. About a kilometre south is the other enclosure, 210 metres long by up to 118 metres wide, walled with upright stones, with at least six hut circles inside and a seventh against its outer face. Its wall crosses the stone row, so the row lies partly inside it. The huts are banks round circular spaces 3 to 5 metres across, averaging 3.9, with walls 0.25 to 0.6 metres high, six butted to earlier enclosure or reave walls and one cut into the reave. The reave runs from SX 66708166 to SX 67738404, mostly a wide bank up to 4 metres wide and 0.8 metres high, and is taken to be a territorial division between two prehistoric communities.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1019577, which cites Butler, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities (1991), pages 31 and 32, and vol 5, The Second Millennium BC (1997), page 221, and fieldwork for the Monuments Protection Programme by S. Gerrard (2000). Eight comments on the Historic England page; I have not used them.

  • Period: Bronze Age
  • Status: Scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1019577)
  • Grid reference: SX 6732 8265 (approximate, from the listing's coordinates)
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