Furzehill Common 1: a stone setting 820m WNW of Hoaroak Farm

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1014259
Date first listed:: 28-Mar-1996

User submitted image — Uploaded by Sandy Gerrard This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

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

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1014259
Date first listed:: 28-Mar-1996

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Devon
District:: North Devon (District Authority)
Parish:: Lynton and Lynmouth
National Park:: EXMOOR
National Grid Reference:: SS 73485 43905

Reasons for Designation

Exmoor is the most easterly of the three main upland areas in the south western peninsula of England. In contrast to the other two areas, Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor, there has been no history of antiquarian research and little excavation of its monuments. However, survey work has confirmed a comparable richness of archaeological remains with evidence of human exploitation and occupation from the Mesolithic period to the present day. The well-preserved and often visible relationships between settlement sites, major land boundaries, trackways and ceremonial and funerary monuments give insight into successive changes in the pattern of land-use through time. Stone settings consist of a group of standing stones set out in an irregular or random pattern. There are a number of such sites on Exmoor where they appear to be a regional variation of the more common stone alignments. Stone settings are often sited close to prehistoric burial monuments, such as small cairns and cists, and to ritual monuments, such as stone circles, and are therefore considered to have had an important ceremonial function. Stone settings were being constructed and used from the Late Neolithic period to the Middle Bronze Age (c.2500-1000 BC) and provide rare evidence of ceremonial and ritual practices during these periods. Due to their rarity and longevity as a monument type all surviving examples are considered to be of national importance.

Furzehill Common 1 stone setting survives well and will retain archaeological and environmental evidence relating to the use and development of the monument. Its importance is increased by being part of a complex of six similar sites within one square kilometre.

Details

The monument includes two standing stones, two recumbent stones and the archaeologically sensitive areas between and around these features. The site is located on the south end of Furzehill Common and on the gentle north west facing slopes above Warcombe Water 820m WNW of Hoaroak Farm. The stones are arranged in an apparently random manner. The westernmost standing stone is 250mm high, 300mm wide and 50mm thick. The easternmost standing stone is 350mm high, 300mm wide and 130mm thick and is upright but leans 40 degrees and has a packing stone at its base. The westernmost recumbent stone is 300mm long by 100m wide whilst the easternmost recumbent stone is 400mm long and 120mm wide.

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:: 25215
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Quinnell, N V, Dunn, C J, Lithic Monuments within the Exmoor National Park: A New Survey, (1992), 24

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.