Sourton Tors stone circle and cairn alignment

Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1007827) describes a stone circle, a cairn alignment, a cider mill stone and a short length of boundary ditch and bank on level ground on the saddle between Sourton Tors and Corn Ridge. The circle is a ring of 18 stones, 32 metres across. Every stone now lies flat and no attempt has been made to raise them. They would once have stood up to 1.8 metres high at regular intervals of about 2.5 metres, but many are missing because of stone working. It lies across the parishes of LCPs of Bridestowe and Sourton and Okehampton Hamlets, about 1.1 km west of Shelstone Tor and 3.3 km east of Bridestowe.

The cairn alignment runs north-north-east to south-south-west. It is a row of 74 small cairns 344.5 metres long, with a large mound at each end. The small cairns are 1 to 2.5 metres across and 0.1 to 0.4 metres high, spaced 4 to 6 metres apart. The south end mound is 10 metres across and up to 0.4 metres high, with shallow hollows that suggest early digging or robbing. The north end mound is 13 metres across and 0.8 metres high, with slabs set around its edge that show a kerb, now mostly buried, and it is pitted in the same way.

The cider mill stone lies 6 metres from the alignment. It is half of the lower stone of a cider mill, made nearby and left behind while being taken off the moor. A cider mill had a ring-shaped trough in which a millstone ran on its edge. This stone is 2.28 metres across and 0.43 metres thick at the edge, 0.68 metres at the centre, with a trough 0.17 metres deep and wide. A post-medieval boundary ditch, 6 metres wide and 1 metre deep with a bank 3 metres wide on each edge, cuts through the cairn alignment.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1007827, which cites Butler, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities (1991), page 219, Worth's Dartmoor (1981), page 384, Turner, 'A Cairn Alignment on Sourton Common, Dartmoor' (Devon Archaeological Society Proceedings, 1991), pages 143 to 144, and the Devon County Sites and Monuments Register (SX58NW4).

• Period: Bronze Age
• Status: Scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1007827)
• Grid reference: SX 5468 8964 (approximate, from the listing's coordinates)