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Summary

Roundy Park enclosure of 114 metres by 102 metres with walls 3.5 metres to 5 metres wide by up to 0.6 metres high containing at least seven structures

Location

Protected Status

• Scheduled Monument 1021332: Roundy Park prehistoric enclosure and cairn with cist, 560m north east of Archerton

Other References/Statuses

• National Monuments Record: SX67NW1
• National Record of the Historic Environment: 442508
• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX67NW/109
• Old SAM Ref: 34491

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• ENCLOSED HUT CIRCLE SETTLEMENT (Constructed, Early Neolithic to Late Iron Age - 4000 BC (Between) to 42 AD (Between))

Full description

South West Heritage Trust, 1838-1848, Digitised Tithe Maps and Transcribed Apportionments (Cartographic). SDV359954.

Irregular enclosure or pound is depicted on the Tithe Map.

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

Pound is shown on the late 19th century historic map as an irregular shaped enclosure.

Prowse, A. B., 1891, The Ancient Metropolis of Dartmoor, 311 (Article in Serial). SDV245176.

Irregular enclosure close above the Dart, on the top of a knoll, which ends in a spur of Chittaford Down. Four hut circles close to its boundary which is a newtake wall built upon an old rampart.
A newtake enclosure of which the wall is built "from and upon an old rampart." It contains four hut circles and at the south west corner a low curved bank delimits an area 45 yards x 30 yards.

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

'Pound (Site of)' shown on early 20th century map an an irregular shaped feature.

Royal Air Force, 1949, RAF/540/176, 5122-3 (Aerial Photograph). SDV224083.

Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division, 1950/1978, SX67NW1 (Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Card). SDV249521.

Pound and two huts - remains of (28/02/1950).
Visited 23/06/1950 - The remains of this pound can be seen beneath the modern enclosure wall. They are of a fragmentary nature being in parts approximately 3 metres wide and 0.2 metres high consisting of turf covered stones. In other parts the walling is scattered. In the south-west corner are the probable remains of a large 'court' which abuts onto the main enclosure wall; the wall is approximately 2 metres wide and 0.2 metres high consisting of a few partly turf covered stones. On the western edge of the enclosure is an apparent 'court' measuring 11 metres by 7 metres. The walling is very fragmentary consisting of only a few turf covered stones.
No hut circles were seen inside the pound.
(05/09/1978) On the slope on the south west side of the East Dart River is a walled enclosure of irregular shape with maximum dimensions 110.0 metres by 110.0 metres. The wall is post-Medieval in construction but may rest on a pre-historic base. Three prehistoric 'yards' adjoin the inner face of the enclosure, all irregular in plan and from 10.0 metres across to 30.0 metres by 15.0 metres with fragmentary turf covered walling up to 0.3 metres high. No hut circles can be seen.
Surveyed at 1:10 000 on PFD.

Royal Air Force, 1951, RAF/540/483, 4046-7 (Aerial Photograph). SDV224087.

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

Discrete enclosure within a field. Appears to have a small partition/element in one corner. Visible on 1951 Royal Air Force aerial photograph.

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

(29/09/1989) SX 63967963. The remains of an enclosed settlement, known locally as Roundy Park, is situated about 370 metres OD on a slight spur at the eastern end of Chittaford Down overlooking the East dart River. (see plan at 1:1000).
The settlement is enclosed by a collapsed and much robbed turf covered rubble wall, generally about 3.5 metres wide but spread in places up to 5 metres with a maximum height of 0.6 metres. It is visible beneath a modern wall enclosing an area 118 metres north-south by 115 metres transversely (about 1 hectare in area). Along the north-east side the early wall has collapsed down the steeper slope, creating a stony scarp up to 5 metres wide and 1 metre high, with the modern wall on its western lip. There is no definite trace of an entrance but it may have corresponded with the modern one at the west end of the southern wall where the modern entrance is.
Rough pasture covers the fairly level interior. There are no conventional hut circles but several small sub circular enclosures, formed of crude turf covered rubble walls, about 1.3 metres wide 0.3 metres high, are built against the wall. At the eastern end of the south-eastern wall three contiguous enclosures A, B and C, levelled into the slope, are about 4 metres, 6 metres by 5 metres and 4 metres in diameter respectively. They may be huts but no entrances can be seen. In the west a `D' shaped enclosure D, measures 9 metres by 4.2 metres inside a wall 2 metres wide and 0.2 metres high; again no entrance is evident. There are similar fragmentary remains of walling at E and F in the north.
Set against the outer face of the enclosure wall in the south-west is a circular area G about 3.5 metres in diameter within a wall, 1.2 metres to 1.6 metres wide and 0.3 metres high and best preserved in the southern arc. It could be a much robbed hut circle but may be no more than fortuitous rubble debris.
Inside utilizing the south-west corner of the main enclosure is a read filled sub rectangular enclosure H some 31 metres north-west by south-east by 17 metres, with a rubble wall 2 metres wide and of 0.4 metres maximum height. No entrance is visible.

Butler, J., 1991, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities: Volume Two - The North, 41, Map 27, Figure 27.4 (Monograph). SDV219155.

Roundy Park enclosure with a stony bank 0.3 metres high and spread to 4.0 metres across which has been overbuilt by the present dilapidated field wall. Traces of prehistoric occupation have not been completely removed from within the enclosure though no doubt much has diasappeared. The probable foundations of at least 5 huts built against the outer wall remain, all associated with curved rubble banks which cut off small sections around the edge but leave most of the interior open.

English Heritage, 2005-2008, Prehistoric Survey Information (Cartographic). SDV345521.

Enclosure shown on survey with five small round features.

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

Visible on aerial photograph.

Ordnance Survey, 2017, MasterMap (Cartographic). SDV359962.

'Roundy Park' is depicted on the modern mapping.

Historic England, 2022, National Heritage List for England, 1021332 (National Heritage List for England). SDV364675.

The monument includes a prehistoric enclosure and cairn with cist situated on an east facing slope overlooking the valley of the East Dart River. The enclosure survives as a D-shaped area denoted by a rubble wall measuring between 3.5 metres and 5 metres wide and standing up to 0.6 metres high. The interior of the enclosure measures 114 metres east-west by 102 metres north-south and contains at least seven structures, some of which may represent the remains of stone hut circles. The enclosure wall is surmounted by a post-medieval drystone wall standing up to 1.6 metres high and a post-medieval leat or drain which cuts through the northern part of the enclosure.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• EDV646 - RCHME Field Investigation
• EDV8648 - Middle Merripit Farm, Duchy Farms Survey
• EDV8409 - Dartmoor Royal Forest Project
• EDV8423 - Duchy Farms Project

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