Prehistoric Dartmoor Walks, walking the Stone Rows and Stone Circles of Dartmoor

Dartmoor Resource: Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities - Cairns

Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities - Missing Cairns

Jeremy Butler Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities Volume 1

Jeremy Butler Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities Volume 2

Jeremy Butler Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities Volume 3

Jeremy Butler Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities Volume 4

Jeremy Butler Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities Volume 5

The missing Butler cairns

The table below lists cairns listed in Jeremy Butler's classic 5-volume Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities published in the 1990s that do not appear on the HER.

This page is a work in progress. For an explanation see the comments on the inter-related Butler Cairns and Grinsell Cairns. Refining and coding the output of so many records is quite a major undertaking and this is the first version of this listing. Rows given a light blue background indicate sites that no longer exist, those with a light salmon background are duplicate records. There maybe cairns mentioned in Volume 5 not yet incorporated into this listing - checking this is an outstanding task. Curiously, there are over 100 such records which suggest that 100 records listed by Butler are not in the HER.

The table currenly alternates between grey and white to make it easier to view as is the style for this website. The light blue rows are those records that have been marked in the database as either no longer existing or of doubtful existence. The listings on this site prior to the addition of these new records (see Prehistoric Dartmoor Map) only included known existing sites that could be visited and seen. The new cairn records added include many dubious records. For example there are 120 sites listed by Butler which would appear to be from aerial photography in the 1980s but appear nowhere else. Are these lost records? Or have they subsequently been dismissed as not archaeological sites? I have as a temporary work around introduced new categories for site types Reported cairn and Clearance cairn. Ideally the Reported cairn records should eventually be re-assigned in some way to something more definite however that could entail years of fieldwork to clarify what they are. The Clearance cairn type relates to all mounds that are not prehistoric cairns - I may rename to something like "Historic period mound" because they are not actually all clearance cairns. This website is not about categorising historic period sites so breaking them down into more specific categories is beyond the scope of the website.

The Butler records below have been indexed and numbered by PDW. The ID entries are as follows:

Volume 1: records 1 - 102
Volume 2: records 103 - 375
Volume 3: records 376 - 659
Volume 4: records 660 - 906
Volume 5: records 907 - 931

Please contact the author if any errors are seen.

Contact email: info@dartmoorwalks.org.uk

Bibliography & references

Butler, Jeremy, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities, vol.1: The East, (1991)
Butler, Jeremy, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities, vol.2: The North,(1991)
Butler, Jeremy, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities, vol.3: The South-West, (1994)
Butler, Jeremy, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities, vol.4: The South-East, (1993)
Butler, Jeremy, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities: Vol. 5. - The Second Millennium B.C. (Devon Books, 1997)
Grinsell, L.V., Dartmoor Barrows, Devon Archaeological Society Proceedings No. 36 (1978)
Turner, J.R., Ring Cairns, stone circles and related monuments on Dartmoor, D.A.S.P. No. 48 pp. 27-86 (1990)
Worth, R.H. Worth's Dartmoor (David & Charles, 1971)

ID	Butler	Grinsell	PDW #	Site Name	OSX	NMR	HER
11	2.5.6		1011	Black Hill 6 Reported Cairn	SX7617578642	n/a	n/a
12	2.5.7		1012	Black Hill 7 Reported Cairn	SX7619078960	n/a	n/a
13	2.5.8		1013	Black Hill 8 Reported Cairn	SX7617078950	n/a	n/a
14	2.5.9		1014	Black Hill 9 Reported Cairn	SX7615078660	n/a	n/a
15	2.5.10		1015	Black Hill 10 Reported Cairn	SX7610278655	n/a	n/a
17	2.5.12		1017	Black Hill 12 Reported Cairn	SX7616778676	SX 77 NE 4	n/a
42	9.9.2		1039	Wittaburrow 2 Reported Cairn	SX7335875201	n/a	n/a
49	10		1046	Buckland Common 1 Reported Cairn	SX7377273930	n/a	n/a
51	10.8		1048	Buckland Common 3 Reported Cairn	SX7358873559	n/a	n/a
52	10.8		1049	Buckland Common 4 Reported Cairn	SX7358773556	n/a	n/a
56	11.1.2		1053	Brake Corner 2 Reported Cairn	SX7018071680	n/a	n/a
64	15.1		1061	Sherwell Reported Cairn	SX6838074550	n/a	n/a
67	15.4.3		1064	Corndon Tor S. Reported Cairn	SX6847073930	n/a	n/a
74	18.2.8	LYD 67a	1071	Riddon Ridge S.E. Reported Cist	SX6695076350	SX 67 NE 15	n/a
99	21	MAN 3a	1096	Hayne Down summit Reported Cist	SX7440080200	n/a	n/a
144	27.20.5		1141	Bellever Tor 5 Cairn Circle	SX6385975989	n/a	n/a
167	30.12	PET 41	1164	Langstone Moor Stone Row Reported Cairn	SX5504078850	SX 57 NE 18	n/a
188	31.17		1185	Cudlipptown Down N. Reported Cairn	SX5337079460	n/a	n/a
282	38.4.1		1279	Scorhill S.4 Reported Cairn	SX6551987191	n/a	n/a
283	38.4.2		1280	Scorhill S.5 Reported Cairn	SX6551987191	n/a	n/a
300	40.6	ST 5b	1293	Cosdon Hill E. Reported Cairn	SX6430091500	n/a	n/a
325	41		1318	Ramsley Hill (site of) Reported Cairn	SX6518693032	n/a	n/a
338	42.9		1331	Okement Hill N. Reported Cairn	SX6030088000	SX 68 NW 42	n/a
381	44.8.4		1374	Merrivale row 4 Reported Cairn	SX5535074580	n/a	n/a
382	44.8.5		1375	Spence Bate's Reported Cist	SX5530074500	SX 57 SE 9	n/a
388	44.8.11		1381	Merrivale 11 Reported Cairn	SX5580074940	n/a	n/a
397	44.9.3	B:WAL 36	1386	North Hessary Tor 3 Reported Cist	SX5780074200	n/a	n/a
422	45.14.4		1411	Black Tor 4 Cairn	SX5696071310	SX 57 SE 238	n/a
437	46.3.7		3090	Raddick Hill W.7 Cairn	SX5745370724	SX 57 SE 88	n/a
448	46.7		1431	Cramber Tor S.1-11 Reported Cairn	SX5840070500	SX 57 SE 177	n/a
508	49.5.1		1491	Gutter Tor 1 Reported Cairn	SX5752666748	n/a	n/a
530	49.19.7-9		1513	Foot of Giant's Basin (a-c) Cairnfield Master	SX5919066930	SX 56 NE 205	n/a
639	52.16.6	SPA 8a	1622	Crownhill Down Reported Cist	SX5700060000	n/a	n/a
660	53.1.1		1643	Addicombe 1 Reported Cairn	SX6497058110	n/a	n/a
670	53.9.7-9		1653	Butterdon Hill Summit 7-9 Reported Cairn	SX6554058653	n/a	n/a
721	53.15		1704	Lud Brook Reported Cairn	SX6601458548	n/a	n/a
728	53.16.7		1711	Ugborough Beacon 5 Cairn	SX6673158689	n/a	n/a
850	60.8.2		1833	Venford Brook W.2 Reported Cairn	SX6813071460	SX 67 SE 246	n/a
851	60.8.3		1834	Venford Brook S.1 Cairn	SX6763070470	SX 67 SE 231	n/a
852	60.8.4		1835	Venford Brook S.2 Cairn	SX6764070460	SX 67 SE 231	n/a
857	60.26.1	HOL 6a	1840	Holne Ridge N.1 Reported Cairn	SX6700071750	SX 67 SE 57	n/a
898	65.3		1881	Oakery (c.6) Cairnfield Master	SX5970074000	SX 57 SE 56	n/a
918			1901	Buckland Down Reported Cist	SX7350074000	n/a	n/a
919			570	Stalldown Row Terminal Cairn Circle	SX6317661737	n/a	n/a

Page last updated 11/12/21