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Summary

Round Pound on Kes Tor is a sub-circular enclosure of approximately 0.07 hectares with walls up to 4 metres wide by nearly 2 metres high. Within the pound are a large central hut and a smaller peripheral hut. Several low walls radiate from the central hut and form segmental enclosures. Excavated in 1951-2 when evidence of iron working was found and an early Iron Age date suggested. The pound was reoccupied during the medieval period.

Location

Protected Status

• Scheduled Monument 1016691: Coaxial field system and prehistoric settlements at Kestor

Other References/Statuses

• National Monuments Record: SX68NE14
• National Record of the Historic Environment: 443518
• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX68NE/9
• Old SAM County Ref: 157
• Old SAM County Ref: 261
• Old SAM Ref: 28714.2
• Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division: SX68NE14

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• FIELD SYSTEM (Constructed, Early Iron Age - 700 BC (Between) to 301 BC (Between))
• HUT CIRCLE SETTLEMENT (Constructed, Early Iron Age - 700 BC (Between) to 301 BC (Between))
• POUND (Constructed, Early Iron Age - 700 BC (Between) to 301 BC (Between))
• FIELD SYSTEM (Altered, Medieval - 1066 AD (Between) to 1539 AD (Between))
• POUND (Altered, Medieval - 1066 AD (Between) to 1539 AD (Between))

Full description

Ormerod, G. W., 1864, On the Hut Circles on the Eastern Side of Dartmoor, 302-303, plate 20 (Article in Serial). SDV304174.

Ormerod records and describes the Round Pound and gives precise dimensions. Pound measures diameter 33.5m, wall mean thickness 1.5m, small hut diameter 3m.

Ordnance Survey, 1880-1899, First Edition Ordnance 25 inch map (Cartographic). SDV336179.

'Round Pound' shown on 19th century map with a 'Hut Circle (Remains of)' within it.

Ordnance Survey, 1904 - 1906, Second Edition Ordnance Survey 25 inch Map, (1906), 89NE (Cartographic). SDV325644.

Curwen, E. C., 1927, Prehistoric Agriculture in Britain, 283 (Article in Serial). SDV173835.

Royal Air Force, 1947, RAF/CPE/UK/2082, 3286-8 (Aerial Photograph). SDV295065.

Ancient Monuments, 1948, Schedule note (Schedule Document). SDV274524.

Round Pound, near Batworthy, a single hut with double walls enclosed in a circular pound, entered from a droveway from the north-west, which is part of the Kestor Field System. There are 4 radial walls inserted in the pound in medieval times. Excavation has showed that this was a metal workshop, of Early Iron Age date.

Fox, A., 1953, 20th Report on the Archaeology and Early History of Devon, 171-2 (Article in Serial). SDV223412.

(Estimated -/-/1951) Round Pound, Near Batworthy.
The Round Pound was founded in the early Iron Age sometime after 400 BC. The settlers were arable farmers, clearing and ploughing small fields, they also had cattle and sheep which they watered and pastured on the open moor. One household had a workshop where iron was smelted. Flint and stone implements were still used but metal and bone would have totally disappeared in the acid soil. There is no trace of contact with provincial Roman culture. Central house excavated. Pound is irregular oval. The original entrance opens north-west onto a stone edged track passing through the ancient fields and leading to the scarp above a stream which joins the river below Batworthy House. Its course suggests a cattle droveway. The pound is divided up into segments by 4 radial low walls which come between the main entrance and the door to the central hut. There is also a small hut in the north corner of the pound. Pound walls are faced with granite slabs with filling of small stones in between (Fox, A., 1951?).

Fox, A., 1954, Celtic Fields and Farms on Dartmoor in Light of Recent Excavations at Kestor, 87-102 (Article in Serial). SDV231175.

Fox, A., 1954, Excavations at Kestor, 21-62 (Article in Serial). SDV304231.

(Estimated -/-/1953) Round Pound, near Batworthy. Excavations on Chagford Common by the Dartmoor Exploration Committee were continued at Round Pound, a single large hut in a circular enclosure. A small smelting furnace for iron and a little pottery of Early Iron Age "A" type indicated that the settlement here should date after 400 BC.

Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division, 1956-1974, SX68NE14, Plan included (Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Card). SDV274636.

SX 6638 8685: 'Round Pound' enclosed hut around 400 BC with iron smelting floor.
(Compiled 09/04/1956) (Centred SX 665867) Settlement, Field System, Hut Circles.
The Kestor Settlement was investigated in 1951-2, primarily by the excavation of the 'Round Pound' and its hut, both of which have walls up to 6 feet thick. The hut was found to have had
timber uprights supporting the roof though the centre was apparently open to the sky. The living quarters were to the left of the narrow paved entrance and to the right a working floor in which was found a small bowl furnace lined with iron slag.
Pottery and other domestic material were of the Iron Age 'A' tradition, about 400 BC.
In the pound the radial walls probably dated from early medieval re-use of the site as a fold, and a small hut in the north quadrant had been previously excavated.
The huts and field system of the settlement as a whole indicate arable farming; small fields being cleared and ploughed, with cattle and sheep pastured on the open moor (Excavations at Kestor 1952 Interim Report).
Huts are double walled and the fields mostly orthostats (C and A Fox Aug 1949).
The lynchets of the field system are quite marked and the huts 30 to 40 feet in diameter have walls up to 4 feet in height (Curwen, E. C., Antiquity 1, 1927, 283). Pollen analysis of the peat preceding cultivation suggests a 600 to 400 BC date for the beginning of the settlement (Fox, A., 1954, Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 86, 21-62).
Classified as early Iron Age, re-occupied in the 13th to 14th century, the fields extensive and partly remade. (Fox, A., 1954, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 20, 87-102)
(20/07/1974) Kestor Settlement is non-nucleated and now comprises a well-defined field system and a score of huts within an area of 20 hectares centred at SX 665868. Further isolated huts with only vestiges of associated field walls are now divorced from the main grouping possibly because of extensive medieval and later clearance of the intervening areas. Huts, mostly double walled, and the fields are on the top and to each side of a low northern spur. Apart from obvious medieval fields which have been superimposed, peat digging has occurred throughout much of the area and it is probably the baulks of these diggings which have been described by Curwen as lynchets.
Surveyed at 1:2500.
The name 'Round Pound' is still applied to the enclosed hut feature.

Grinsell, L. V., 1970, Discovering Regional Archaeology: South Western England, 26 (Monograph). SDV304192.

Round Pound, entered from the west from the western of the two sunken roads, and containing a single hut circle, the largest in the settlement.

Cleere, H. F., 1972, The Classification of Early Iron-Smelting Furnaces, 9, figures 1, 11 (Article in Serial). SDV274640.

Author illustrates a simple bowl furnace at Kestor, with hemispherical super-structure and blown with forced draught, typical of the earliest ironmaking cultures.

National Monument Record, 1977, SX6686, 2/59-63, 6/54-56 (Aerial Photograph). SDV274641.

Silvester, R. J., 1979, The Relationship of First Millennium Settlement to the Upland Areas of the South West, 178-179 (Article in Serial). SDV177352.

Silvester considers the evidence of iron working in the Round Pound at Kestor unconvincing and casts doubt on the relationship of this activity to Iron Age occupation.

Griffith, F. M., 1984, DAP/DK, 4 (Aerial Photograph). SDV343378.

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

Clearly visible on National Monuments Record 1977 aerial photograph.

Griffith, F. M., 1985, DAP/EM, 3a (Aerial Photograph). SDV274678.

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

(11/10/1991) Centred SX 66388685. Round Pound, an enclosure of approximately 0.07 hectares lies on a gentle north-west facing slope adjacent to the road leading to Batworthy Farm. Within the pound are a large central hut and a smaller peripheral hut. Several low walls radiate from the central hut and form segmental enclosures.
The pound is sub-circular and bounded by a double wall of massive upright slabs and boulders standing to a maximum height of 1.6 metres. A blocked entrance in the west formerly gave access to a contemporary trackway.
The radial walls are insubstantial lines of partially buried boulders. The central hut consists of a double wall of upright slabs and boulders around 1.4 metres wide and up to 1.2 metres high enclosing an area 11.2 metres in diameter. An entrance lies in the south-south-east margin. The peripheral hut is less well preserved, possessing a partial circle of upright stones enclosing an area 2.8 metres in diameter. There is no obvious entrance.
The 1991 1:2500 survey of Chagford Common (see RCHME Castor survey) indicates that the field system and associated hut circles previously assumed to be contemporary with Round Pound are actually of earlier origin. As such they should no longer be included in this report. These features are divided into several hut clusters and individual huts within a well-developed parallel reave system (see related records).

Somers Cocks, J. V., 1988, Letter regarding Roundy Pound, Gidleigh (Correspondence). SDV274646.

(04/12/1988) The proper name of this site is 'Roundy Pound', roundy being the moorman's word for hut circle.

Devon County Council, 1989, DAP/PJ, 14, 15 (Aerial Photograph). SDV274652.

Griffith, F. M., 1990, DAP/TV, 1-4 (Aerial Photograph). SDV160790.

Gerrard, S., 1990-2002, Monument Protection Programme. Archaeological Item Dataset., MPP 149130 (Report - Survey). SDV277946.

(02/04/1997) [MPP 149130] An enclosure forming part of a prehistoric settlement within the Kestor coaxial field system. Double orthostatic wall 3 metres wide, 1.5 metres high. Oval. Entrance measures 1.4 metres wide and is clearly denoted both sides by large horizontally laid slabs. Rushes and grass with some gorse.

Probert, S. A. J., 1991, Castor Parallel System (Plan - measured). SDV229808.

Depicted on plan

Butler, J., 1991, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities: Volume Two - The North, 170-174, Map 36, Figure 36.2 (Monograph). SDV219155.

'Round Pound, Kes Tor' with a massive wall spread to 4 metres across and nearly 2 metres high which encircles the central asymmetric hut. The straighter eastern side of the pound overlies a reave approaching from the north-west. The gaps in the east and west walls are later damage with the original entrance through the north-west wall from a passageway across the fields. The entrance was excavated revealing a step down to the outside but there was no sign of postholes for a gate. The entrance passage is flanked by three courses of large horizontal slabs apparently originally covered by a large lintel which has slipped forward and now blocks egress. Later, perhaps in the 12th century, a shepherd built a crude shelter against the inner wall and may have been responsible for building the five radial walls constructed from stones fallen from the central hut wall some time after it had been abandoned.

Timms, S., 1994, 'Deep Breathing to Grimspound': Archaeologists Discover Dartmoor, page 2; plate 1 (Article in Serial). SDV274650.

Ordnance Survey, 2016, MasterMap (Cartographic). SDV359352.

'Round Pound' and 'Hut Circles' depicted on the modern mapping.

Historic England, 2016, National Heritage List for England (National Heritage List for England). SDV359353.

The monument includes (among other features) part of the prehistoric coaxial field system known as North Teign, two broadly contemporary settlements, parts of which continued in use into the Iron Age.
Four of the huts were excavated between 1951 and 1952 by Lady Fox and in the large one within Roundy Pound, evidence of iron smelting was recovered. It is generally accepted that this activity dated to the Iron Age, although the situation is somewhat confused by evidence for reoccupation of the hut during the medieval period.

Various, 2018-2020, PALs Condition Recording forms, SD-KT 1 (Worksheet). SDV362781.

(06/01/2019) Condition assessed by volunteer recorders as moderate; vegetation encroachment (mainly rushes and gorse) is having an impact on the site.

Various, 2018-2020, PALs Condition Recording photographs (Photograph). SDV363073.

Photographs taken during January 2019 visit.

Historic England, 2021-2022, NRHE to HER website, Accessed 22/04/2022 (Website). SDV364039.

(Area centred SX 664867) Settlement (NR).
(SX 66388685) Round Pound (NR) (OS map, 1963).
The Kestor Settlement was investigated in 1951-2, primarily by the excavation of the 'Round Pound' and its hut, both of which have walls up to 6ft thick. The hut was found to have had timber uprights supporting the roof though the centre was apparently open to the sky. The living quarters were to the left of the narrow paved entrance and to the right a working floor in which was found a small bowl furnace lined with iron slag. Pottery and other domestic material were of the IA 'A' tradition, about 400 BC.
In the pound the radial walls probably dated from early medieval re-use of the site as a fold, and a small hut in the N quadrant had been previously excavated.
arable farming, small fields being cleared and ploughed, with cattle and sheep pastured on the open moor (citing A. Fox, Excavations at Kestor 1952 Interim Report).
Huts are double walled and the fields mostly orthostats (OS card, C and A Fox correspondence, Aug 1949). The lynchets of the field system are quite marked and the huts 30 to 40ft in diameter, have walls up to 4ft in height (Antiquity, 1927, Vol 1, pg. 283). Pollen analysis of the peat preceding cultivation suggests a 600 to 400 BC date for the beginning of the settlement (Fox, A., 1954, TDA, 86, pgs. 21-62).
Classified as early Iron Age, re-occupied in the 13th to 14th century, the fields extensive and partly remade (Fox, A., 1954, PPS, 20, pgs. 87-102).

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• EDV6903 - Excavation at Round Pound (Batworthy Pound), Kestor
• EDV8423 - Duchy Farms Project

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