Fernworthy Stone Circle
Photo taken on 25-07-2015
Prehistoric Dartmoor Walks: Dartmoor Site: Fernworthy Stone Circle
OS Map: SX 65486 84126
OS Source: Google
HER record: 6534
Megalithic Portal: 530
PMD: Fernworthy Stone Circle
Alternate name: Fernworthy
Short Name: SC Fernworth
Turner: G13
DPD page: 138
Exist: Yes
Record: Unique
Record Source: PDW
Cairn Class: No
Dimensions (m): 19.3
Lidar: SX65498413
Notes: The Fernworthy circle is part of a group of ceremonial monuments including 3 stone rows and 5 cairns that may once have rivalled Merrivale and Shovel Down as ceremonial centres. The site is in a small clearing in Fernworthy Forrest off the path to Teignhead Farm. The circle is remarkably intact with all but 2 stones still in their original places ... It is 20m in diameter and consists of 27 small stones. The stone rows and cairns probably came later and surround the site. The circle was excavated by the Dartmoor Exploration Committee in 1897. They found that the interior of the circle was covered in a layer of charcoal suggesting that it had been the scene of very many fires - perhaps funeral pyres or feasts. See also Legendary Dartmoor: Dartmoor's Fernworthy Stone. DNP Post 3D.
Nearby sites: SX65498413
Google Satellite Map
References
These are selected references with an emphasis on out of copyright sources linked as PDFs. For more detailed references try any linked HER record. For some records there are very good resources on the Prehistoric Monuments of Dartmoor (PMD) website by Bill Radcliffe. Barrow reports are linked above as are references to Butler, Grinsell and Turner.
- A-Z, Dartmoor Sketches, (1870)
- Baring-Gould, Sabine, Fifth Report of the Dartmoor Exploration Committee, T.D.A. Vol.30 pp.97-115 (1898)
- Bate, C Spence, On the Prehistoric Antiquities of Dartmoor, T.D.A. Vol.4 pp.491-516 (1871)
- Brailsford, J. W, Bronze Age Stone Monuments of Dartmoor, Antiquity Volume 12, Number 48 pp.444-63 (1938)
- Burnard, Robert, Early Man, The Victoria History of the County of Devon: v. 1 (1906)
- Chudleigh, J, An Exploration of Dartmoor's Antiquities, (1892)
- Falcon, T.A., Dartmoor Illustrated, (1900)
- Lukis, W.C, Report on the Monuments of Dartmoor, Proceeding of the Society of Antiquaries Vol.8 (1881)
- Newman, Phil, The Archaeology of Fernworthy Forest, Dartmoor, Devon, Southwest Landscape Investigations (2013)
- Page, John Lloyd Warden, An Exploration of Dartmoor and its Antiquities, with some account of its borders, (1889)
- Worth, R. Hansford, The Stone Rows of Dartmoor Part 1, T.D.A. Vol.78 pp.285-316 (1946)