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Main image: Photo: Guy Wareham, Wikimedia Commons
Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1003189) describes two kerbed cairns, one with a cist, on the crest of a south-east-facing slope overlooking the valley of the River Swincombe. The scheduling falls in two areas, and the northern wall of Joan Ford's newtake runs through both cairns. It lies in the parish of Dartmoor Forest, about 2.4 km south-east of Blakey Tor and 2.5 km west of Hexworthy.
The eastern cairn is a circular stony mound up to 11 metres across and 0.4 metres high, with an almost continuous inner ring of small stones forming a kerb 8 metres across and up to 0.4 metres high. Its cist is up to 1 metre long by 0.6 metres wide, with a displaced cover stone. The western cairn is a low circular mound up to 0.3 metres high, ringed by a retaining kerb of large slabs about 6 metres across that shows on both sides of the newtake wall. About seven of the upright kerb slabs are still in place, one of them leaning, and a further stone has been built into the wall and another reused as a gatepost. Other remains nearby are scheduled separately.
Sources: Historic England list entry 1003189 (updated 10 November 2015), which cites Butler, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities (1994), and PastScape 443307 and 443310.
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Leighon tor. Photograph by Glavind Strachan Photography“Swelling and sinking solemnly along the sky, Dartmoor surrounded Newtake.”
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“The only signs of life are the furry inhabitants of the warren, and, perchance, a herd of Dartmoor ponies, wild as the country over which they roam, and a few sheep or cattle grazing on the slopes.”
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