<< Our Photo Pages >> Wittaburrow Cairn - Cairn in England in Devon
Submitted by AngieLake on Tuesday, 11 September 2012 Page Views: 2332
Neolithic and Bronze AgeSite Name: Wittaburrow Cairn Alternative Name: Grinsell Widecombe in the Moor 15; Whittaborrow; Butler (map 9.9.1)Country: England
NOTE: This site is 0.591 km away from the location you searched for.
County: Devon Type: Cairn
Nearest Town: Ashburton Nearest Village: Widecombe in the Moor
Map Ref: SX73347521
Latitude: 50.562875N Longitude: 3.789667W
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
Internal Links:
External Links:
This cairn high up on Wittaburrow hill is visible from some distance and I'd noticed it while walking to Tunhill Rocks.
Butler, in his 'Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities - Volume One, the East' [1991], says:
"Large cairns such as this, with a diameter of 22 m, are not very easy to demolish, but generations of visitors have certainly made some progress here. The cairn is composed of particularly small stones, easily lifted, which have been cast aside in all directions in search of the pot of gold. However, the remains still dominate the summit, as impressive as its three giant neighbours visible across the valley on the crest of Rippon Tor. As with those cairns, this also has a junior partner. A low mound of stone 5.0 m across and 0.3 m high, with a square pit at the centre lies 30 m to the south-east."
Decided to check it out for Megalithic Portal, and kill three birds with one stone: Top Tor Cairns, Blackslade Down Cairn and Cist, and Wittaburrow Cairn. A very nice walk.
As recorded in Top Tor Cairns site page: travelling westwards, I parked at the high panoramic car park just after Harefoot Cross on OS map, at the top right of Widecombe hill . (Care should be taken pulling over on the bend, and watch out for straying ponies!)
Just cross the road and head due south, uphill towards Top Tor. Keep going along the ridge to Pil Tor, then pick a track through the bracken that leads towards Wittaburrow, also to south.
I stood on top of Pil Tor rocks and looked down to find the pathway, but missed the intended one and eventually found myself nearly at Blackslade Ford, where there were two marker stones for a medieval farmhouse, which Butler mentions in his book as 'Blackslade Longhouse', but very little of that building remains today.
This was not a bad detour as just above here runs the gritted track to Tunhill from Blackslade Ford, though on checking the OS map, it goes on to join the Hemsworthy Gate to Coldeast Cross road, making it an option for those who don't want to walk across the Top Tor/Pil Tor ridge.
I joined this track heading WNW around the lower contours of Wittaburrow, and found Blackslade Cairn and Cist just to the right, more or less in line with the corner of the drystone wall surrounding the newtake to my left.
The cairn was fairly ruinous but the four stones of the cist were in place and a slab nearby may have been part of the lid.
Taking a track up to the summit of Wittaburrow, at first it was hard to see where the cairn was situated (false summits!)... but between two outcrops of rock the cairn suddenly came into view.
It is quite large and must have been pretty huge before a lot of the stones were robbed to make the nearby newtake walls. Just to the SE of it is a tiny cairn with a possible cist still just about visible. (Butler's "square pit" isn't obvious these days.)
Great views all around.
While walking up to the summit via Wittaburrow's northern slopes I noticed two areas of scattered stones that might have been remains of hut circles, though Butler mentions a NW-running reave crossing that area, so they were probably remains of this.
Away from the main cairn, I noticed lots of scattered stones on the west-facing slope at the north west end of the summit contour area. This made me wonder if there had once been a summit cairn at that end, but it is probably clitter.
Update December 2019: This cairn is featured on the Prehistoric Dartmoor Walks (PDW) website - see their entry for the Wittaburrow Cairn. It is also recorded as Pastscape Monument No. 445132, and as MDV7537 (Cairn south of Wittaburrow) on the Devon and Dartmoor HER.
You may be viewing yesterday's version of this page. To see the most up to date information please register for a free account.
Do not use the above information on other web sites or publications without permission of the contributor.
Click here to see more info for this site
Nearby sites
Click here to view sites on an interactive OS mapKey: Red: member's photo, Blue: 3rd party photo, Yellow: other image, Green: no photo - please go there and take one, Grey: site destroyed
Download sites to:
KML (Google Earth)
GPX (GPS waypoints)
CSV (Garmin/Navman)
CSV (Excel)
To unlock full downloads you need to sign up as a Contributory Member. Otherwise downloads are limited to 50 sites.
Turn off the page maps and other distractions
Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
308m NNE 12° Blackslade Down Cairn and Cist* Cist (SX7341275510)
605m NNW 344° Tunhill Rocks* Ancient Village or Settlement (SX7318975796)
787m NNE 32° Foales Arrishes* Ancient Village or Settlement (SX73777587)
1.2km N 6° Top Tor row Stone Row / Alignment (SX735764)
1.3km NE 36° Seven Lords' Lands* Stone Circle (SX74127623)
1.3km N 9° Top Tor Cairns* Cairn (SX7357476472)
1.4km ENE 73° Rippon Tor* Cairn (SX74667558)
1.8km WNW 290° Dunstone Cup Stone Rock Art (SX71677585)
2.0km S 172° Buckland Ridge South Ring Cairn (SX73577324)
2.1km S 174° Ten Commandments Stone* Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature (SX735731)
2.2km NW 315° Saxon Well* Holy Well or Sacred Spring (SX718768)
2.3km S 175° Stidwell* Holy Well or Sacred Spring (SX735729)
3.1km N 351° Chinkwell Tor Cairn* Cairn (SX7293078250)
3.6km N 11° Hound Tor Ring Cairn* Ring Cairn (SX7409778770)
3.7km NE 35° Smallacombe Rocks Settlement* Ancient Village or Settlement (SX7558378211)
3.8km NNE 18° Hound Tor Deserted Medieval Village* Ancient Village or Settlement (SX74627878)
3.9km NNE 13° Hound Tor Enclosure* Causewayed Enclosure (SX74307897)
3.9km NW 322° Hamel Down Cairn and Cist* Cairn (SX7100878345)
4.4km NE 47° Haytor Down Ring Cairn (SX76617814)
4.5km NW 325° Hamel Down Beacon cairn* Cairn (SX70837891)
4.6km NE 37° Black Hill Cairns* Cairn (SX762788)
4.6km NW 324° Blackaton Down south (Hamel Down)* Cairn (SX70737904)
4.7km WSW 243° Sherberton Common Multiple Stone Rows / Avenue (SX691732)
4.7km NW 324° Blackaton Down north (Hamel Down)* Cairn (SX70687909)
4.8km W 263° Corndon Down N Cairns* Barrow Cemetery (SX68587473)
View more nearby sites and additional images