Corndon Down Cairns
The four Corndon Down Cairns (also called Corndon Tor Cairns ) are located in Widecombe-in-the-Moor , near Ashburton in Devon in England .
Jeremy Butler writes in his 4-volume work “Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities”: “There is a small gate on the highest point of Corndon Down. The rocks are surrounded by a large cairn made of small stones. These are distributed in all directions, but it is unlikely that there were ever enough to cover the rocks. "
Corndon also has a number of Bronze Age "reaves" (prehistoric boundary markings) and remains of settlements and ancient field patterns. The reaves cover a total of over 10,000 acres on Dartmoor . There are three main cairns and a fourth less recognizable.
A large cairn (20 m long and 3 m high) lies in the north. The eastern cairn is 21 m long and 2.5 m high. The western one is 25 m in diameter.
The looting of ancient monuments is almost as old as the monuments and has continued to this day, with the Cairns becoming more decimated. A small isolated hut base (3.5 m diameter) in a tiny enclosure lies in the hollow between the peaks. The wall still protrudes from the ground, with an outer concentric wall.
literature
- Frances Lynch : Megalithic tombs and Long Barrows in Britain. Shire, Princes Risborough 1997, ISBN 0-7478-0341-2 ( Shire archeology 73).
- Jürgen E. Walkowitz: The megalithic syndrome. European cult sites of the Stone Age (= contributions to the prehistory and early history of Central Europe. Vol. 36). Beier & Beran, Langenweißbach 2003, ISBN 3-930036-70-3 .
- Jeremy Butler : Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities : (Devon Books, 1997)
Web links
- Description and pictures (English)
Coordinates: 50 ° 33'9.9 " N , 3 ° 51'24.9" W.