Tor cairn surrounding Branscombe's Loaf forming part of a cemetery on Corn Ridge summit

Reasons for Designation

Dartmoor is the largest expanse of open moorland in southern Britain and, because of exceptional conditions of preservation, it is also one of the most complete examples of an upland relict landscape in the whole country. The great wealth and diversity of archaeological remains provides direct evidence for human exploitation of the Moor from the early prehistoric period onwards. The well-preserved and often visible relationship between settlement sites, land boundaries, trackways, ceremonial and funerary monuments as well as later industrial remains, gives significant insights into successive changes in the pattern of land use through time. Tor cairns are ceremonial monuments dating to the Early and Middle Bronze Age (c.2000-1000 BC). They were constructed as ring banks of stone rubble, up to 35m in external diameter, sometimes with entrances and external ditches, and roughly concentric around natural outcrops or tors. In some cases a kerb of edge-set stones bounded the inner edge of the bank, and the area between the bank and the outcrop was sometimes in-filled by laying down a platform of stone rubble or turves. Excavated examples have revealed post-holes and pits within the area defined by the ring-bank, some containing burial evidence, and scatters of Bronze Age artefacts concentrated around the central tor. Tor cairns usually occur as isolated monuments, though several are associated with broadly contemporary cairn cemeteries. They are very rare nationally with only 40-50 known examples concentrated on the higher moors of Devon and Cornwall, where their situation in prominent locations makes them a major visual element in the modern landscape. As a rare monument type, all surviving examples are considered worthy of preservation.

The tor cairn surrounding Branscombe's Loaf survives well and contains important archaeological and environmental information relating to the monument and the landscape in which it was erected. This cairn forms part of a cairn cemetery containing two round cairns, two tor cairns and types of ring cairn. Such a diverse range of cairn types within a single cemetery is unusual.

Details

This monument includes a tor cairn situated on the summit of Corn Ridge. The cairn includes a bank of small to medium-sized stones surrounding a large rock outcrop known as Branscombe's Loaf. The ring bank survives as a 1.5m- wide and 0.5m-high rubble spread defining an internal area measuring 18m in diameter. The rock outcrop or tor measures 12m east to west by 4m north to south and stands up to 4m high. This cairn forms part of a cairn cemetery including two round cairns, two tor cairns and two ring cairns.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

24067

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Turner, J R, Devon Archaeological Society Proceedings in Ring Cairns, Stone Circles and Related Monuments on Dartmoor, Vol. 48, (1990), 34

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Print the official list entry