Stone alignment and terminal cairns south-west of Glasscombe Corner

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 provide rare evidence of ceremonial or ritual practices on the Moor during the Late Neolithic and the Bronze Age. This alignment, south- west of Glasscombe Corner is connected with two cairns and associated with several others in the immediate vicinity.

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 2500 BC). This alignment and its associated cairns lie south-west of Glasscombe Corner and the West Glaze Brook, on the lower eastern slope of Piles Hill. The alignment runs south-west/north-east for 174 metres down across the slope and is single for about one third of its length and double for the southern two thirds. It has a cairn at either end, the northern one surviving as a retaining kerb 10m in diameter and the southern cairn being 6m in diameter and 0.4m in height. Three more cairns are associated with the northern end of the alignment, they range from 7m to 9m in diameter and are all 0.4m in height, two have traces of retaining kerbs.

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:

10557

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Grinsell, L V, Devon Archaeological Society Proceedings in Dartmoor Barrows, Vol. 36, (1978), 171

Other
Devon County SMR SX66SE-005,

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