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Summary

Large hut circle settlement and associated irregular aggregate field system to the west of Little Mis Tor overlooking the valley of the River Walkham. The settlement is associated with three blocks of irregular aggregate field systems and includes at least 57 stone hut circles surviving as stone and earth banks surrounding a circular or oval internal area. The hut interiors vary in diameter between 2.1 metres and 8.2 metres with the average being 4.71 metres and the height of the surrounding walls is between 0.3 metres and 1.3 metres high with the average being 0.67 metres. Thirty of the huts have visible doorways, two have a porch, three are partitioned, one has a bench and one has a courtyard. Most of the huts are abutted by field boundaries suggesting that the field systems were added later

Location

Protected Status

• Scheduled Monument 1016148: A prehistoric and historic archaeological landscape within Merrivale Newtake

Other References/Statuses

• National Monuments Record: SX57NE23
• National Record of the Historic Environment: 439638
• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX57NE/38
• Old SAM County Ref: 335

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• HUT CIRCLE SETTLEMENT (Bronze Age - 2200 BC (Between) to 701 BC (Between))

Full description

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

'Hut Circles' shown on 19th century map.

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

'Hut Circles' shown on early 20th century map.

Fox, A., 1954, Celtic Fields and Farms on Dartmoor in Light of Recent Excavations at Kestor, 37 (Article in Serial). SDV231175.

Settlement with huts in two groups. A northern with 25 huts; a southern with 14 huts. Irregular lynchetted fields and plots with orthostatic walls.

Royal Air Force, 1964, RAF/F64/58/6399, 0041-2 (Aerial Photograph). SDV255307.

Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division, 1978, SX57NE23, SX57NE23 (Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Card). SDV237029.

Visited on 11th July 1950. Enclosure walls composed of usual turf covered stones. Fragmentary in parts.
Visited on 17th October 1978. A settlement, mostly of enclosed huts, occupies 4.5 hectares of a gentle western slope above the River Walkham and within a newtake. The principal elements are the sixteen linked enclosures most of which are in clitter and ten perhaps sub-divisions of a single large one at SX 55557635. On the ground the sequence of construction is far from clear; the enclosures are generally rectilinear, varying greatly in shape, and from 0.05 to 1.0 hectares in area. The rubble walling is up to 2.0 metrres wide and 0.4 metres high, exceptionally 0.9 metres high where it incorporates in situ boulders. There are no obvious entrances. These fields or plots show no evidence of levelling and much surface stone is scattered within. How much the slight build-up of soil against the lower walls is attributable to natural slip and how much to agricultural effects is difficult to determine.
Thirty three huts are traceable, a few detached, internally and externally from the enclosures but the majority are either attached to the walls or linked by them, the huts are of Type 1 (SX 56 SE 19) with tumbled rubble walling averaging 1.3 metres. wide and 0.6 metres. high. The interiors are levelled and vary from 2.5 metres. to 8.0 metres in diameter with an average of 4.3 metres. Where visible entrances are southerley, and seven incorporate orthostats. Two huts are unusually large; one at SX 55557647 has an internal diameter of 7.5 metres the other at SX 55627645 is 8.0 metres in diameter.
No field system is visible in the surrounding area.
Surveyed at 1:10 000 on MSD.

National Monument Record, 1979, SF1510, 178-180 (Aerial Photograph). SDV224088.

Photogrpah taken on 26th April 1979.

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

Recorded on aerial photograph.

Butler, J., 1991, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities: Volume Two - The North, 69-71, Map 30, Figure 30.3 (Monograph). SDV219155.

'Little Mis Tor West' settlement '4' is made up of 40 hut circles of 2.5 to 8.5 metres diameter most of them enclosed within five fields. The largest hut lies outside the fields to the north of the settlement. Nineteen hut are within Enclosure 'A' crammed closely together in the northern half and joined by numerous short walls forming paddocks between them. Pits within Enclosure 'B' and a partly demolished hut show later activity. Enclosure 'C' surrounds a single hut and Enclosure 'D' also encloses one definite and one possible hut. The small Enclosure 'E' is incomplete and associated with up to five huts.

Ordnance Survey, 2022, Mastermap 2022 (Cartographic). SDV364674.

'Settlement' shown on modern mapping.

Historic England, 2022, National Heritage List for England, 1016148 (National Heritage List for England). SDV364675.

This monument falls into six areas and includes three irregular aggregate field systems associated with prehistoric stone hut circle settlements. The largest settlement is associated with three blocks of irregular aggregate field systems and includes at least 57 stone hut circles surviving as stone and earth banks surrounding a circular or oval internal area. The hut interiors vary in diameter between 2.1 metres and 8.2 metres with walls between 0.3 metres and 1.3 metres high. Thirty of the huts have visible doorways, two have a porch, three are partitioned, one has a bench and one has a courtyard. Most of the huts are abutted by field boundaries suggesting that the field systems were added later.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

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