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Summary

Remains of five individuals in a Mass Grave, initially thought to be from a medieval/post-medieval gallows at Windy corner; and other burials on the south side of Dartmouth Road in the vicinity of the war memorial.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses

• Torbay HER: MTO14702

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• BURIAL PIT (Late Bronze Age to Saxon - 800 BC? to 1065 AD?)

Full description

Torbay HER record (SMR record). SDV361984.

Human bones were observed protruding from the side of a pipe-laying trench at Windy Corner Brixham Road near the Telephone Exchange. The site is on the edge of Churston Common (/Galmpton Warborough Common), near the junction of Paignton and Churston parishes. The bones represented five bodies and were very decayed and friable. They were declared to be at least sixty years old. The bodies were buried with no regard for orientation and were not all complete when buried. There was no trace of either grave goods, grave structure, or other dating material. [1]

Locally it is believed that gallows stood on Galmpton Warborough, and this explanation was inherited when the SMR was disaggregated from DCC in 1998. Work in recent years, 2-3 kms ESE of this location has confirmed the spatial distribution over large areas of the limestone plateau of Early Neolithic, Late neolithic/Early Bronze Age and Late Bronze Age sites of lithic and other artefactual scatters (MTO13893). Though neither structures nor corresponding burial sites have been identified. As the contemporary report was of burials the inhumation traditions of the first millennium BC and sub-Roman Britain may be a better date.

A young Professor Michael Parker Pearson, 8 years old in 1965, observed bones between the war memorial and the bus stop at Windy Corner Road in a further portion of the trench(pers comm) 1 February 2016:

" I can be absolutely certain that the bones I saw were ... discovered in a service trench running along (and just beside) the south side of the [Dartmouth] road in the area between the war memorial and the bus stop at Windy Corner. [2] This is a distance of c.155m, with a further 55m to the telephone exchange site.

<1> Anon., 1965, Devon Archaeological Exploration Society Newsletter, p.5 (Article in Serial). SDV362519.

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<2> Parker Pearson, M., 2016, e-mails to Hal Bishop 1 February 2016 (Personal Comment). SDV362420.

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Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

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