Riddon Ridge field systems

Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1018930) describes two irregular aggregate field systems with settlements, part of the Dartmeet coaxial field system, cairns, a coffin stone, boundary stones, historic fields and groups of prospecting pits on Riddon Ridge, between the East Dart River and the Walla Brook. The scheduling falls into three areas. It lies in the parish of Dartmoor Forest, about 1.5 km north-east of Laughter Tor and 1.5 km south-east of Bellever.

The northern field system has at least 60 fields bounded by rubble walling and three settlements. The northern settlement has at least 12 hut circles, 9.6 to 37.4 square metres inside, averaging 23.6, with walls 0.3 to 1.2 metres high; four have visible doorways and nine are attached to boundary walling. The central settlement, at SX 66107650, has two huts each with oval fields, and the third has two huts, one beside the field system. The eastern field system has at least 32 fields, some attached to reaves of the Dartmeet system, and in its final form is later than the coaxial system. Its western settlement is a single hut at SX 66407625 and its eastern has at least six. The coaxial system here has three large fields and at least 13 smaller ones, all on a prevailing axis from north-east to south-west, with a lone hut at SX 67017602 built into it.

At least seven cairns lie within the monument. Some are probably funerary, at least three of the smaller ones may be clearance, and two others may have been set up by the builders of the coaxial system during their first survey. An unusual medieval feature is a lone fallen stone with a cross cut on one face, believed to be a coffin stone on which coffins rested on the way to the Lich Way. Four boundary stones carved with letters may be linked to tinworking, though the only sign of that is two lines of prospecting pits and a few more pits. Two areas of historic fields survive, one with a single rectangular field and two joined fields, the other with fields outlined by a corn ditch and slight traces of narrow ridge and furrow.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1018930, which cites Butler, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities (1991), page 139, a 1993 survey plan of Riddon Ridge at 1:2500, the Devon County Sites and Monuments Register (SX67NE306, 1994) and fieldwork for the Monuments Protection Programme by S. Gerrard (1999).

• Period: Medieval
• Status: Scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1018930)
• Grid reference: SX 6656 7642 (approximate, from the listing's coordinates)