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Summary

This monument includes 13 cairns, a length of boundary bank and a lynchet situated on a south facing slope overlooking the valley of the Walla Brook. Of the cairns, eight have mounds that are sub-circular in shape and these range in size from 3m to 6m in diameter and stand between 0.4m and 0.8m high. The remainder are ovoid in shape, and these range between 5m to 9m long, 3m to 5m wide and stand between 0.5m and 0.8m high.

Location

Protected Status

• Scheduled Monument 1007659: Cairnfield and associated earthworks on the north eastern slope of White Hill

Other References/Statuses

• National Monuments Record: SX58SW57
• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX58SW/91
• Old SAM Ref: 22343

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• CAIRNFIELD (Early Neolithic to Late Bronze Age - 4000 BC to 701 BC (Between))

Full description

Fleming, A., 1980, The Cairnfields of North-West Dartmoor, 9-12 (Article in Serial). SDV251119.

White Hill north-east at around 1250 feet. Nineteen definite cairns, twenty-six if all possibles are included. Low walls representing fragment of primitive field system. Small, oval, and very small cairns in group.

Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, 1985, Aerial Photograph Project (Interpretation). SDV319854.

Not visible on Royal Air Force vertical aerial photographs.

Gerrard, S., 1990-2002, Monument Protection Programme. Archaeological Item Dataset., MPP 130959-69, 20/4/1993 (Report - Survey). SDV277946.

See related cairn records.

Butler, J., 1991, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities: Volume Two - The North, 219, Map 43.2 (Monograph). SDV219155.

English Heritage, 2015, National Heritage List for England (National Heritage List for England). SDV357602.

The cairnfield on the north eastern slope of White Hill survives well and contains archaeological and environmental evidence relating to the monument and the landscape in which it was constructed. It provides a valuable insight into Bronze Age agricultural activity on the western side of the Moor.
This monument includes 13 cairns, a length of boundary bank and a lynchet situated on a south facing slope overlooking the valley of the Walla Brook. Of the cairns, eight have mounds that are sub-circular in shape and these range in size from 3m to 6m in diameter and stand between 0.4m and 0.8m high. The remainder are ovoid in shape, and these range between 5m to 9m long, 3m to 5m wide and stand between 0.5m and 0.8m high. The average height of all the mounds is 0.66m. One cairn has a shallow hollow in the centre of the mound, suggesting robbing or partial excavation. Some of the cairns may contain burials, but the group most likely represents stone clearance connected with cultivation of the area. Remnants of an associated field system survive as an 80m long, 1.6m wide and 0.4m high lynchet following the contour, and a 64m long, 2m wide and 0.3m high boundary bank leading downslope from the lynchet. This field system was probably originally more extensive and now survives largely in the form of buried remains, the full extent of which are not known. Further cairns lying to the east and west of this monument are the subject of separate schedulings. Due to factors of scale in mapping the map extract may seem to imply that sites SM22347 and SM22345 adjoin, but they are in fact separate on the ground.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

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