Two hut circles on the south-east slope of Stalldown

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 inwards. 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. This pair of linked hut circles is a well-preserved example of hut dwellings and provides important evidence of how early farming and stock- rearing communities lived on the Moor.

Details

Low stone walls or banks enclosing a circular internal floor area form the remains of timber and turf or thatch-roofed dwellings occupied by farmers of the prehistoric period. They may occur singly or in larger groups and were sometimes built within a surrounding boundary bank or enclosure. On Dartmoor, the long tradition of building stone-based round houses can be traced back to the second millennium BC, probably from about 1700 BC onwards. These two stone hut circles in dense bracken on the south-east slope of Stalldown, are 6m. in diameter with walls over a metre high and are joined by a sinuous wall of large granite boulders up to a metre high and approximately 30m. long.

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:

10514

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Other
Devon County SMR,

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