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Summary

Enclosure walls of the pound were examined during the excavation. It was established the only the breach on the eastern side represented an original entrance to the settlement; all the other gaps are later insertions. A number of structures also examined on the western side of the pound.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses

• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX66NE/73/1
• Old SAM County Ref: 282/1

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• WALL (Constructed, Bronze Age - 2200 BC to 701 BC (Between))

Full description

Fox, A., 1957, Excavations at Dean Moor (1954-1956), pg. 53-7, fig.4, 18-19 (Article in Serial). SDV167114.

The pound wall.
Two sections through the wall were made, the apparent entrance gaps examined and one internal and one external structure built on to the western pound wall cleared. On the southern side the wall is a stoney terrace on the hillside, lowered when the medieval homestead was built. Core of the wall consisted of small stones. Inside the enclosure was an unusual depth of soil. A second section cut 3.05 metres from the eastern entrance showed that the wall had an outer face of large boulders bedded horizontally on the subsoil, with a filling of small stones behind it. Only the eastern gap proved to be the original entrance. Faint path from it down to the water. Roughly cobbled passageway passing obliquely through the wall found. Cobbling retained by two lines of sill stones bedded diagonally across the passage forming two steps 0.9 metres apart.
Similar construction noted at Round Pound. Cobbling faded out approximately 1.0 metre inside the pound. Original sides of entrance uncertain, most of flanking stones missing. No postholes found. Gap on the western side of pound was shown not to be a prehistoric entrance. Wall had been breached when the small pens had been built. A small hut had been built into the thickness of the tumbled wall, made of three large upright slabs with the spaces in between filled in with neat roughly coursed blocks. Floor cobbled, probably medieval. The pen is an oval enclosure built on to the inner face of the western pound wall. Walls built of small stones, not bedded, probably sill walls for a turf super-structure. Roughly paved and cobbled floor inside. Nothing found in occupation layer of soil, no hearth or charcoal. Single posthole in the centre. Probably a cattle shed contemporary with the huts. A fine-grained granite slab, water-worn and also worn down by rubbing and whetting was found in the wall debris.

Butler, J., 1993, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities: Volume Four - The South-East, 147-9, Map 57, Figure 57.16 (Monograph). SDV337765.

The primeter wall at 'Brockhill Foot West enclosure' faced by layered blocks with occasional vertical slabs was originally 2.8 metres wide and probably rose no higher than 1.2 metres. In medieval times the uphill wall was rebuilt on narrower foundations and the circuit expanded.

Ordnance Survey, 2015, MasterMap (Cartographic). SDV357601.

Depicted on the modern map (partly submerged by reservoir).

Bluesky International Ltd/Getmapping PLC, 2015-2017, 2015-2017 Aerial Photographs (Aerial Photograph). SDV361462.

Wall of enclosure visible on aerial photograph.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• EDV8466 - Excavations in the Avon Valley

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