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- Period: Medieval or post-medieval (the warren is recorded by 1651)
- Status: Five scheduled monuments (Historic England entries listed below)
- Traps: Five in these entries, out of about 40 on the warren as a whole
A warren needed protecting from foxes, stoats and other predators. Animals approaching rabbits tend to follow cover, so the warrenders built walls and ditches that led them along a line to a single point where they could be trapped. On Trowlesworthy Warren these survive as drystone walls in V, X and Y shapes, often placed to use a boulder, a rock face, a stream or the leat as one side of the funnel.
Historic England records about 40 vermin traps on the warren between the River Plym, Spanish Lake and Blacka Brook. Only the scheduled ones are listed here.
The five scheduled monuments
| Historic England entry | Grid reference | What survives |
|---|---|---|
| 1014659 | SX 57861 64325 | An X-shaped trap made of two V-shaped walls with a 0.7 m funnel at the centre, walls up to three courses high and a nearby stone split by the wedge and groove method. |
| 1014660 | SX 57893 64329 | A V-shaped trap near the summit pointing at a rock face, with arms 10.5 m and 11 m long. |
| 1014475 | SX 57864 63977 | A Y-shaped trap beside a small stream, with an 8.5 m wall ending at a 2 m boulder and two shorter arms. |
| 1014465 | SX 57534 64052 | A V-shaped trap pointing at the Lee Moor china clay leat, which may have been used as the way into the warren; arms 5.5 m and 6 m long. |
| 1014476 | SX 57991 64306 | A V-shaped trap at the southern foot of the tor, using the tor face and a large boulder to funnel the animals. |
Grid references are from the Historic England entries. Historic England's own titles give a distance from the tor which does not always match its grid reference (one pillow mound is titled 210 m east of the tor but its grid reference puts it about 130 m west), so use the grid reference.
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