Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

See our extensive range of expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

Two stone circles known as The Grey Wethers, three round cairns, two ring cairns and an oval enclosure in Great Stannon Newtake

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1018707
Date first listed:: 19-Jan-1962

User submitted image — Uploaded by Mark Johnstone 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:: 1018707
Date first listed:: 19-Jan-1962
Date of most recent amendment:: 19-Mar-1999

Location

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

County:: Devon
District:: West Devon (District Authority)
Parish:: Dartmoor Forest
National Park:: DARTMOOR
National Grid Reference:: SX 63877 83139, SX 64005 82883, SX 64080 82830, SX 64159 83161, SX 64166 82654, SX 64317 83284

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 provide 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 circles, or circular arrangements of upright stones, were set into the ground and acted as ceremonial and funerary monuments during the later Neolithic and Bronze Age periods (c.2400-700 BC). On Dartmoor they are often found in association with stone alignments and burial monuments such as cairns and cists. The circles may be single or enclose further circles; they may occur as isolated examples or in groups. The 26 examples on Dartmoor form one of the most dense concentrations of monuments of this type in the country. Due to their relative rarity (with a national population of only some 200 examples) and longevity as a monument type, all stone circles are considered to be nationally important.

A number of further ritual monuments survive within close proximity to The Grey Wethers stone circles. The round cairns, ring cairns and possible henge together provide evidence for an important ritual area in this part of Bronze Age Dartmoor. The location of this area at the head of three rivers may indicate that this concentration of ritual monuments had more than just local significance.

Details

The monument, which falls into six areas, includes two stone circles, three round cairns, two ring cairns and an oval enclosure lying at the head of three separate rivers within Great Stannon Newtake. The stone circles known collectively as The Grey Wethers, lie adjacent to each other and are very similar in size and character. The northern circle measures 31.5m in diameter and is denoted by 20 upright granite slabs with an average height of 1.1m. The diameter of the southern circle is 33m and includes 29 standing stones varying in height between 1m and 1.4m. Excavations carried out by the Dartmoor Exploration Committee towards the end of the 19th century revealed a layer of charcoal covering the original ground surface. A shallow trench visible leading through the southern circle may be the result of this excavation. A round cairn lying 280m east of the stone circles was also investigated by the Dartmoor Exploration Committee, whose work revealed a central pit filled with charcoal. This cairn now survives as a 5.3m diameter and 0.7m high stony mound. Lying north east of this cairn are two further mounds. The largest of these may be a ring cairn which survives as a 15m diameter and 0.6m high, flat topped mound with an outer edge of stones which represents the remnant of a ring bank. Four metres to the north east of this cairn is another mound which measures 4.5m in diameter and 0.7m high. A slight hollow in the centre of this cairn is probably the result of robbing or partial early excavation. Lying 230m SSE of The Grey Wethers is an oval enclosure defined by a 4.5m wide and 1.2m high rubble bank surrounding an internal area measuring 53.5m east to west by 39m north to south. An 8.3m wide entrance gap on the eastern side is flanked on each side by a stony mound. The considerable size of the bank combined with its proximity to a number of ritual monuments strongly supports the contention that this enclosure is much more likely to have been used for ritual than domestic purposes and it has consequently been identified as a henge. A cairn lying south east of the enclosure measures 9m in diameter, stands up to 0.6m high and is surrounded by a clearly defined kerb. To the SSE of this cairn is a sub circular enclosure measuring 22.7m long by 20.1m wide surrounded by a 2.8m wide and 0.5m high rubble bank. An entrance on the western side measures 1.1m wide and in the centre is a substantial recumbent stone which may have once stood upright. This enclosure has been identified as a ring cairn.

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:: 28680
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Butler, J, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities, (1991), 165-6
Butler, J, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities, (1991), 165-6
Turner, J R, 'Devon Archaeological Society Proceedings' in A Possible Henge At Teignhead, , Vol. 42, (1984), 103-6
Other
Devon County Sites and Monuments Register, SX68SE103, (1995)
Devon County Sites and Monuments Register, SX68SE104, (1995)
Devon County Sites and Monuments Register, SX68SE126,

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.