Spurrell's Cross stone alignment and cairn.
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Scheduled Monument
- List Entry Number:
- 1012460
- Date first listed:
- 10-Oct-1991
Location
Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.
Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions .
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.
What is the National Heritage List for England?
The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.
The list includes:
 |
Buildings |
 |
Scheduled monuments |
 |
Parks and gardens |
 |
Battlefields |
 |
Shipwrecks |
Local Heritage Hub
Unlock and explore hidden histories, aerial photography, and listed buildings and places for every county, district, city and major town across England.
Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Scheduled Monument
- List Entry Number:
- 1012460
- Date first listed:
- 10-Oct-1991
Location
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
- County:
- Devon
- District:
- South Hams (District Authority)
- Parish:
- Ugborough
- National Park:
- Dartmoor
- National Grid Reference:
- SX 65837 59896
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, major 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. Stone alignments, such as that at Spurrell's Cross, provide rare evidence of ceremonial or ritual practices on the Moor during the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age.
Details
Stone alignments or stone rows consist of upright stones set in a single line or in two or more parallel lines, up to several hundred metres in length. They frequently lead to burial monuments such as small cairns, cists and barrows and are therefore thought to have had a ceremonial function. The 70 or so examples known on Dartmoor were probably constructed in the late Neolithic period (around 2,500 BC). This single alignment lies close to Spurrell's Cross and runs north-west/south-east, at least fourteen stones remain unevenly spaced and aligned and with a maximum height of 0.6m. The length of the alignment, which has been truncated by the Red Lake Railway track, is 113m. The cairn at its southern end is 11m in diameter and 0.4m in height with six stones of a retaining kerb.
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:
- 10555
- Legacy System:
- RSM
Sources
Books and journals
Grinsell, L V, Devon Archaeological Society Proceedings in Dartmoor Barrows, Vol. 36, (1978), 172
Other
Devon County SMR SX65NE-008,
Devon County SMR SX65NE-008.01,
Legal
This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Map
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 18-Jun-2026 at 00:33:10.
Download a full scale map (PDF)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.