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Antiquities

Tor cairn surrounding Branscombe's Loaf forming part of a cemetery on Corn Ridge summit

Devon

This scheduled monument on Corn Ridge consists of a tor cairn, a natural rocky outcrop enhanced or modified by human hands, surrounded by a Bronze Age cemetery. The most prominent feature is Branscombe's Loaf, a distinctive stone heap that crowns the summit. Such cairns often marked burial grounds or sacred places on the high moor, serving as focal points in the landscape for communities who lived and died on Dartmoor thousands of years ago.

Today the site sits exposed on the ridge, part of the open moorland that defines this stretch of Dartmoor. The stones remain much as they have for millennia, weathered and settled into the moor. For those walking the heights, the cairn offers both a tangible link to Bronze Age settlement and a natural landmark in an austere, ancient landscape.

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Photo: Guy Wareham (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons

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