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Tor cairn on High Willhays summit

Grid ref: SX 5804 8921

Main image: Photo: Chris Andrews, Wikimedia Commons

Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1010592) describes a tor cairn on the summit of High Willhays, the highest point in southern England. It is two semicircular banks built against the east face of a large rock outcrop. The outer ring bank is a curving earthwork 18 metres long and 2 metres wide, up to 0.8 metres high on the outer edge and 0.2 metres on the side facing the tor. The central length of the inner ring shows as a double-faced wall of upright stones 1.4 metres wide and 0.7 metres high, which survives elsewhere as a buried feature marked by a lynchet 0.5 metres high. The area inside the banks is 13.5 metres north to south by 5.5 metres east to west. It lies in the parish of Okehampton Hamlets, about 1 km south of Yes Tor.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1010592, which cites Turner, 'Ring Cairns, Stone Circles and Related Monuments on Dartmoor' (Devon Archaeological Society Proceedings 48, 1990), page 37, the Devon County Sites and Monuments Register (SX58NE43, 1983) and fieldwork for the Monuments Protection Programme by S. Gerrard.

  • Period: Bronze Age
  • Status: Scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1010592)
  • Grid reference: SX 5804 8921 (approximate, from the listing's coordinates)
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A close-up photograph from DartmoorPhotograph by Glavind Strachan Photography

“You notice, Miss Beatrice, next time us gets a brave storm of wind and rain how they all does. Bullocks always stand side to 'en." ... "You notice a horse," he continued. "He'll face it — always. Runs into it. Sheep now, they'm just the contrary, they turn tail and run before it. But a hare be the ...”

Also on Our DartmoorThe Longstone, Shovel Down — A 3 m granite menhir on Shovel Down at the end of two stone rows and the meeting point of the Chagford, Gidleigh and Lydford parish bounds.

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