Excerpts from R. Hansford Worth’s Survey of The Prehistoric Monuments of Scorhill, Buttern Hill and Shuggledown (Shoveldown) as read at Paignton on 21st June 1932.
[Reprinted from the Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art. 1932. – Vol. lxiv, pp. 279-287.]
Scorhill
[References made here to Worth’s plan of Scorhill, which he surveyed on 6th and 7th August 1931 (81 years ago this month!), can be checked out with the copy on Meg P’s Scorhill site page. I set out to try and summarise his article, but it wasn’t easy, so apologies for the length.]
While writing in 1931/2 R. Hansford Worth says Scorhill circle has never been carefully planned, or the plan published, which is surprising as it has been “fully recognized as one of our prinicipal Dartmoor monuments.”
Rowe (of Perambulation) wrote in 1848: “This is by far the finest example of the rude but venerable shrines of Druidical worship in Devonshire.” Hansford Worth says: “It is certainly a fine circle, well placed on ground which slopes to the south and west, and commanding an extensive view of the valleys of the N.Teign and Wallabrook.”
He lists some previous surveys:
Rowe, in the Perambulation, says 20 stones were standing, several having fallen.
Croker, in 1851 (3 years later) says 27 stones formed the circle, of which several were prostrate.
Ormerod, in 1858, says 29 stones were erect, and 2 prostrate.
Murray’s Handbook, 1865, gives 26 standing and 6 fallen, and gives the accurate diameter of the circle (acc. to H. Worth) of 88 ft.
Chudleigh (1st edition ? 1891) reports 23 stones standing, but does not say how many lay fallen… his sketch appears to show 7.
Brooking Rowe, editor of the 3rd edition of his uncle’s work (Perambulation), states that in 1896, 24 stones were standing and 8 had fallen.
Spence Bate, writing in Transactions of the Devonshire Assoc. in 1871, says “There are 31 stones, all of which are in position, excepting 2 which have fallen.”
H. Worth then checked another investigation made by Rowe in 1827-28, when he stated that the stones were “37 in number, 10 of which are fallen.”
He follows this with a table of findings of 14 people (most of the above, from 1827 to 1909 – and himself in 1931) but few agree on the numbers standing (20-29), or fallen (2-10), or on the diameter, which ranges from 72 to 100 ft. He thinks that, when complete, there were probably 65 to 70 stones.
Worth concludes that 24 stones were standing in 1879 and that for many years that had probably been the number. A stone next to, and east of, the cart track on the southern circumference of the circle is shown by Lukis and Andrews as standing but “leaning in”; this has since fallen and is easily identified. It appears to have fallen before Chudleigh’s visit in 1891.
Lukis and Andrews’ [Rev. W. C. Lukis and Col. Andrews] 1879 survey shows that the outlying stone to the S of the circle (which Worth marks in plan as having the “End cut off”) had already been mutilated.
Rowe in Perambulation makes the point that the two tallest stones “yet erect” stood at nearly opposite points in the circle, but these are not diametrically placed. “The angle which they subtend at the centre of the circle is 146⁰-30’-0” and not 180⁰.” He had been informed that their opposition nevertheless had some hidden meaning.
Worth adds that among the fallen stones and those removed there may well have been a rival to that stone that was second in height. He records (the present) tallest stone as being 8’2” in height, and the second tallest as 5’7” (looking at his individual measurements, this one was the 9th stone clockwise from the tallest one.)
Hansford Worth goes on to say that other stones from the circle have found “utilitarian use not far away”.
He mentions the sizes, and fashioning for purpose, of four or more that were used to maintain the lower bank (where it crosses a mire), of the “pot-water leat to Scorhill and other farms which contours the hillside to the west and south of the circle, and at its nearest is less than 60 yards distant.”
“In addition to this …. three of the fallen stones remaining have been attacked; one, lying outside has been shortened” … (he guesses it may have originally been more than 6ft.)… “two have been holed for splitting longitudinally, off one a piece has been taken, and the other has also been trimmed. The perpetrator of these last outrages was caught in the act, his desire was for gate-posts, but he had to obtain them elsewhere.”
Talking about the cart track and surface-water channel (“which represents a former track”), H. Worth is puzzled as to why a route should be taken through the circle. (The cart track leads to fords on Wallabrook and N.Teign.) He makes the observation: “The one point of interest is that the water channel has cut well below the surface and reveals nothing but the natural subsoil.”
NB: There was no copyright note on either* of the Transactions of the Devonshire Assoc. booklets that I bought recently in a hospice charity shop in Exeter. *[The second is The Stone Rows of Dartmoor, Part 1].
Btw: Letters after his name = R. Hansford Worth, M. Inst. C. E., F.G.S. (Presumably a Civil Engineer and fellow of Geological Soc.?, who should have been capable of producing a very accurate survey and account.)
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