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<< Our Photo Pages >> Assycombe - Multiple Stone Rows / Avenue in England in Devon

Submitted by vicky on Friday, 08 October 2004  Page Views: 14338

Neolithic and Bronze AgeSite Name: Assycombe Alternative Name: Assacombe, Assicombe Stone Row
Country: England County: Devon Type: Multiple Stone Rows / Avenue
Nearest Town: Moretonhampstead  Nearest Village: Postbridge / Lettaford
Map Ref: SX66058260  Landranger Map Number: 191
Latitude: 50.627669N  Longitude: 3.895203W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
4 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
5 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
3 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
5

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I have visited· I would like to visit

TheCaptain would like to visit

graemefield visited on 21st Oct 2013 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 5 Access: 2

SandyG visited on 28th Apr 2013 - their rating: Cond: 4 Amb: 4 Access: 3 Car parking is available at SX 65899 83608 then follow forest road on foot south to SX 65883 82597. Turn left and follow forest path uphill to the clearing containing the stone row.

Bolstered visited - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 4 Access: 2

AngieLake cazzyjane have visited here

Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 3.33 Ambience: 4.33 Access: 2.33

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by stonedowser : This view is from the top end of the row looking downhill. Ian. (Vote or comment on this photo)
An impressive 117 meter long double stone row on a steep hill side in Fernworthy Forest. At the top of the row is a 6 foot blocking stone and ringed cairn.

This stone row is featured on the Stone Rows of Great Britain website - see their entry for Assycombe, which includes a description, a plan of the row with its cairns and round house nearby, and a discussion about the views from the row which extend up to 19km.

This Bronze Age stone row and cairn are also recorded as Pastscape Monument No. 443782, which adds that the blocking stone was re-erected by Baring-Gould.

Prehistoric Dartmoor Walks also includes three pages for this site: Assycombe Standing Stone, the Assycombe Stone Row, and the Assycombe Double Stone Row. The latter contains a detailed description, information from a number of sources and old and modern photographs, including one which shows the row being crossed by a reave.

The row is also recorded as MDV6537 (Assacombe Stone Row) on the Devon and Dartmoor HER, and scheduled as part of Historic England List Entry No. 1017981 (Stone alignment, hut circle settlement, medieval long house and post-medieval farmstead at Assycombe).
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Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by cazzyjane : Assycombe Stone row. September 2011. Unfortunately I picked the wrong time of year to visit as the grass was almost as tall as a lot of the stones. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by Postman : Been saving this site for a sunny day, champion. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by Postman : Golly I liked this place. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by Bladup : The stones at the Eastern (top) end of Assycombe stone row. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by Bladup : The cairn circle at the Eastern (top) end of Assycombe stone row.

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by caradoc68 : Welcome to Dartmoor just sometimes its rains and the cloud comes down has you know. This impressive 117 meter double stone row is on one of the steepest hill sides of all of row's on the moor. The picture is of the top of the row with its 6 foot blocking off stone with its ringed cairn just to one side and asks the question. Which came first with this monument was it the stone row? or was it the c...

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by stonedowser : Assycombe rows at the top end looking toward what is left of the cairn circle. Ian

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by stonedowser : Assycombe rows from the bottom end looking uphill Ian

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by davep : Assycombe Stone Row. Prehistoric Dartmoor Walks. Site 143.

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by davep : The Assycombe Standing Stone. Prehistoric Dartmoor Walks. Site 1.

Assycombe Hill
Assycombe Hill submitted by Postman : Why cant this be one site? Stone row, circle, and round house, boom, one site. A very good site too.

Assycombe Hill
Assycombe Hill submitted by Postman : I was unprepared for the uber positive vibe I got from this place, perhaps it was the successful solstice sunrise, perhaps it was my loving son stood by my side, perhaps it was......... I dunno, it was very good.

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by Postman : A single terminal stone?

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by Postman : Nice walling of hut circle next to the stone row, I'd move in tomorrow.

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by Postman : Going down.

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by Postman : Going up to the wee stone circle.

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by Postman : The cairn circle and loads of stones shooting off down hill. Is the big flat stone supposed to be doing something? standing up? covering a cist? too big surely?

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by Postman : The cairn circle and loads of stones.

Assycombe Hill
Assycombe Hill submitted by Anne T : The Assycombe Hill cairn and cist at the eastern end of the Assycombe (Assacombe) stone row. Submitted on behalf of Prehistoric Dartmoor Walks.

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by awalker364 : Assycombe, Fernworthy, Dartmoor, Devon, UK.

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by awalker364

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by awalker364

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by awalker364 : Assycombe, Fernworthy, Dartmoor, Devon, Uk.

Assycombe
Assycombe submitted by awalker364 : Assycombe, Fernworthy, Dartmoor, Devon.

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Stone Rows of Great Britain by Sandy Gerrard
Dartmoor Walks by Dave Parks
Prehistoric Monuments of Dartmoor by Bill Radcliffe

Prehistoric Circles and Rows by Ian Honeywood


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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 64m NE 50° Assycombe Hill* Cairn (SX66108264)
 838m NNE 16° Lowton Brook West Settlement* Ancient Village or Settlement (SX663834)
 1.1km WSW 246° White Ridge cairn* Round Cairn (SX65028218)
 1.2km NNE 23° East Lowton settlement* Ancient Village or Settlement (SX6653783668)
 1.2km SSW 210° White Ridge stone row* Stone Row / Alignment (SX65408156)
 1.2km E 93° Hurston Ridge* Multiple Stone Rows / Avenue (SX67308251)
 1.3km E 92° Hurston Ridge Settlement* Ancient Village or Settlement (SX67338253)
 1.5km NNW 338° Fernworthy Cairn 4* Cairn (SX65518403)
 1.5km E 81° Chagford Common Cairn* Cairn (SX6757182800)
 1.5km NNW 340° Fernworthy Cairn E* Cairn (SX65568407)
 1.6km NE 41° The Heath Stone* Standing Stone (Menhir) (SX6712083750)
 1.6km NNW 338° Fernworthy stone row SE* Stone Row / Alignment (SX65498407)
 1.6km NNW 338° Fernworthy Cairn SE* Cairn (SX65498409)
 1.6km NNW 338° Fernworthy* Multiple Stone Rows / Avenue (SX65488410)
 1.6km NNW 337° Fernworthy Cairn SW* Cairn (SX65478410)
 1.6km NNW 338° Fernworthy stone row SW* Multiple Stone Rows / Avenue (SX6547984105)
 1.6km NNE 27° Metherall Settlement* Ancient Village or Settlement (SX66838401)
 1.6km NNW 338° Fernworthy circle* Stone Circle (SX65488411)
 1.7km SSW 199° Stannon Newtake cist* Cist (SX65468105)
 1.7km SSW 204° Stannon Newtake West Cairn and row* Multiple Stone Rows / Avenue (SX65338110)
 1.7km NW 314° Hemstone Rocks Platform Cairn Circle* Cairn (SX6485683806)
 1.7km NW 312° Fernworthy settlement* Ancient Village or Settlement (SX6481183777)
 1.7km SE 139° Water hill cairn* Cairn (SX67158128)
 1.7km NW 315° Hemstone Rocks Ring Cairn and Cist* Cairn (SX6485283850)
 1.8km NNW 342° Fernworthy Cairn N* Cairn (SX65548433)
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Prehistoric Settlements

Prehistoric Settlements

Web Links for Assycombe

Stone Rows of Great Britain by Sandy Gerrard
Dartmoor Walks by Dave Parks
Prehistoric Monuments of Dartmoor by Bill Radcliffe

Archived Web links for Assycombe

Prehistoric Circles and Rows by Ian Honeywood

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Re: Assycombe by caradoc68 on Monday, 07 October 2013
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7b5NcEwcxI

Short video clip of this impressive monument on the southern edge of Fernworthy forest...
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Re: Assycombe by AngieLake on Sunday, 13 August 2006
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Had a look in my Butler's and it seems some rows were sited to avoid reaves.
He says:
"Two single rows about 750 m apart closely accompany the winding Shell Top W reave, Penn Beacon S, and Shell Top SW, both of them aligned along the contour parallel with the adjacent section of reave rather than at an angle down the slope as was usual. Their very different orientations seem to be determined by the direction of the reave alongside which alters couse considerably between the two monuments (fig.172a). "
He goes on to mention another that runs parallel east of a reave, and after that adds:
"All these are sited on the uphill or open side, which suggests that Hurston Ridge double row running parallel 40 m to the east of the ridgeway reave on the Bovey side of the watershed, one of a series of reaves between the two rivers, may actually have been put up by the inhabitants of the neighbouring Teign valley. These folk were presumably responsible for the very similar designs of Assycombe and Fernworthy. At a later date an inhabited enclosure roughly rectangular in shape was added to the eastern side of the reave, which must have been still of significance, slighting the row despite the ample amount of open space in the vicinity."
In his diagrams on the same page he shows a 'low prehistoric bank' bisecting the Assycombe stone rows, and 'a prehistoric wall' bisecting the Hurston Ridge rows.
I always do things back to front!
Just read beginning of reaves section and Butler says:
"Field evidence suggests that some rows were being constructed around the period when the boundary reaves were first laid out around 1700 BC, some before, the rest soon to follow, and that whatever ritual role they might originally have fulfilled many were later to assume a secondary function as boundary markers."

I can't quote more here, but this is taken from page 244 to 247 of 'Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities, Volume Five, The Second Millennium BC', by Jeremy Butler. This series is invaluable if exploring Dartmoor with its thousands of megalithic remains!
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Re: Assycombe by TheCaptain on Sunday, 13 August 2006
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Any Reaves and roundhouses will almost certainly be much more recent than the stone rows.
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Re: Assycombe by AngieLake on Saturday, 12 August 2006
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Visited this lovely site today with some friends.
Found that the very long, well-preserved double stone row slopes rather steeply downhill towards SW, and a possible Winter Solstice sunset alignment, though a large hill obscures the horizon opposite. At the lower end, we were looking up hill between the rows towards the NE, and possibly sunrise at Summer Solstice.
It's difficult to imagine how the ancients viewed their landscape surroundings, but today, without the plantation (Fernworthy Forest surrounds it), the great lump of rock on Kes Tor, which can be seen for miles around, would have been visible to the north.
There is a round cairn at the top of the rows with small stones around it (and a huge, flat, capstone-like piece of granite just above it on the slope), and at the lower end the remains of quite a large (contemporary?) round-house sit to the left of the row.

I dowsed inside the ruin's area and the rods soon drew me to an offering left by someone recently. It resembled a 'dream-catcher', about 8" across, fashioned from very thin flexible twigs - quite neat and natural. Looking uphill from it, a lilac ribbon had been tied to a nearby small tree. On another stone there were two small chunks of cheese and two dried up pieces of biscuit, so someone must have done this recently. Not too long ago someone had also lit a fire in a 'hearth' near the middle of the circle. (A bit dangerous if it was done during the heatwave! - though one of my colleagues thought it was older than that.) Oh - and while looking for a suitable photographic angle to shoot the roundhouse, approx SE of the single-cloutie tree, I came across a neatly arranged bundle of approx 8" long sticks, tucked in beside an animal burrow, between two very low gorsey bushes. That was odd, unless they were kindling, but why hide them there?

At the top of the row is a fine standing stone, about 5'6" tall, and a quite large fallen one diagonally in front of it. The stones of the rows are shorter (about 2ft high?) and are fairly evenly-sized down over the hill, with one section where there are four larger more rectangular ones (IIRC), and near the bottom is a section with several really small round ones at each side, then they get larger again. One taller stone stands at the end of the left-hand row, but we felt sure that originally it had a partner at the end of the right-hand row too.

Cutting across the middle of the row there appears to be a kind of 'reave' of stones, not unlike the one that bisects the Hurston ridge row, not far east of here but outside the forest. (Could be a local style? That one runs downhill towards NNE. Kes Tor is again a focal point, as the NNE end of its row turns towards it.)
At first sight, I did wonder if there had also been a small cairn in the centre of the row at this point, like the one at Merrivale's south row .
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