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Summary

Two hut circles and an extensive field system situated at centre SX 6394 7213 on sloping ground south of Swincombe. The occupied land is predominantly clear, moorland pasture.

Location

Protected Status

• SHINE: Central western section of the Bronze Age Venford Reave at Swincombe, with a number of attached hut circle settlements and enclosures, as well as an extensive Bronze Age field system, a cairn and a post-Medieval blowing house on Down Ridge

Other References/Statuses

• National Monuments Record: SX67SW180
• National Record of the Historic Environment: 908621
• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX67SW/330
• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX67SW/331

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• (Former Type) REAVE (Bronze Age - 2200 BC to 701 BC)
• FIELD SYSTEM (Constructed, Bronze Age - 2200 BC (Between) to 701 BC (Between))

Full description

Ordnance Survey, 1802, Ordnance Survey Drawings (Cartographic). SDV338458.

National Monuments Record, 1976, NMR SX6472, 1/54, 2/63-7, 3/53, 56-8 & 73-6 (Aerial Photograph). SDV245616.

Photograph taken on 22nd April 1976.

Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, 1985, Aerial Photograph Project (Dartmoor) - Dartmoor Pre-NMP (Cartographic). SDV319854.

This field system could be treated as a large and sprawling agglomerated enclosure, but it does not seem to have any apparent nucleus. It has about nine elements, and it contains five hut circles.
There are four fragments of reave, attached to, or very close to, the venford reave, at SX 63657228, SX 63757222, SX 63757221 and SX 63827221.

Royal Commission for the Historical Monuments of England, 1987-1993, Duchy Farms Project Survey Visit, P. Pattison (Report - Survey). SDV350839.

(19/07/1988) Two hut circles and an extensive field system situated at centre SX 6394 7213 on sloping ground S of Swincombe. The occupied land is predominantly clear, moorland pasture.
(A) SX 6403 7214. Hut circle with an internal diameter of 5.5m defined by walling of medium-size rubble with traces of internal and external facing slabs on the NW and SE arcs. The NE and SW arcs have been destroyed above ground. The surviving wall portions are 1.2-1.5m wide, 0.35m high internally and 0.4-0.6m high externally. No entrance is visible. The level interior is terraced into the slope by cutting in to 0.2m. Field walls join the NE and SW arcs in a manner suggesting they post-date the hut circle.
(B) SX 6403 7210. Hut circle with an internal diameter of 4.8m visible as a fragmentary ring of protruding stones accompanied by slight scarping. The remaining wall material is c.1m wide and 0.45m high. Some of the visible stones may be facing slabs. No entrance is visible. The interior is terraced into the slope by cutting in to c.0.2m.
Four other hut circles recorded on the RCHME APP (1985) are not visible as surface archaeological features; exhaustive fieldwork revealed nothing in the positions indicated.
9 hectares of field system surround the hut circles, mainly to the W. The present pattern is clearly a palimpsest with indications of phasing at (C), a crossing point of two boundaries and (D) a blocking of a trackway. Development of the field block was probably by accretion or fusion of a number of elements but it is difficult to chart. However, the "Venford Reave" (SX 67 SE 96) acts as a basal boundary from which five, possibly six parallel boundaries run N; not one continues S across the reave (they may have originated as parallel reaves springing from the Venford terminal). One of these may at some time have been continuous to the crossing point (D). The remainder of the system appears more irregular but was perhaps aligned on a broad trackway (E) now isolated towards the centre. The E boundary is clear but on the NW streamworking (SX 67 SW 181) has obliterated all details. (F) is a boundary of larger blocks, different in character from the rest: it swings on from the E to take over the line of the "Venford Reave". It is shown as a dashed line in a survey of 1802-3 and may be an abandoned newtake (1802-5).
Preservation of the field walls varies considerably. The best elements are piled rubble walls of medium and large-size stones, occasionally taking in natural, in situ boulders. These survive between 1.3-2.5m wide and 0.3-0.6m high. In places this is reduced to more intermittent lines, sometimes fragmentary earthfast stones, of comparatively small dimensions. Where complete, the individual fields are between 0.3 and 1.5 ha in area. The majority are virtually free of surface stone although there is a band of medium clitter situated along a S strip close to the "Venford Reave".
"Four fragments of reave" recorded from the RCHME APP in 1985 (SX67SW/330) are in fact part of the field system in general; they are not reaves.
The field system as a whole should be viewed in conjunction with other prehistoric evidence in the immediate vicinity.
The hut circles and field system are visible on AP's.

Butler, J., 1993, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities: Volume Four - The South-East, 208-210, Map 62, Figure 62.3 (Monograph). SDV337765.

Field system (4) at Deep Swincombe West consists of irregular enclosures varying in area around a badly preserved hut at the centre.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• EDV8146 - Royal Commission Survey at Down Ridge and Swincombe
• EDV7062 - Survey of the Wheal Emma Leat, Dartmoor
• EDV8632 - Sherberton Farm, Duchy Farms Survey
• EDV8409 - Dartmoor Royal Forest Project
• EDV8423 - Duchy Farms Project

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