Kes Tor Round Pound

Kes Tor Round Pound (also called SX 66393 86847) is one of about 30 so-called Dartmoor Pounds , stone enclosures used in the Bronze and Iron Age ( Grimspound ), which mainly occur in Dartmoor in Devon in England . The eponymous Kes Tor is a rock outcrop that is located nearby.

To the northeast of Batworthy, on either side of the small road that runs from Teigncombe to Batworthy, are the remains of a cottage settlement with subdivided field systems. The huts have a diameter of between seven and eleven meters. You are here in a pound, a comparatively small (there are four hectares), round stone enclosure about 33 m in diameter with one to two meters thick walls and an entrance to the west. There is evidence of a fall over the entrance. In the center of the round pound there is a stone hut 11 meters in diameter with a double-shell, about one meter thick wall that shows evidence of post holes that held a wooden structure to support the thatched roof. The entrance was in the south.

The excavation of the hut in 1952 yielded an anvil , which was used together with some pits for iron smelting, as well as a spindle whorl , pottery shards and flints . The areas from the Bronze Age and the traces from the Iron Age show that the pound was used over a long period of time or was used again after an interruption. The site was then re-used in the Middle Ages when the pound was divided by low interior walls, using stones from the older walls.

In 1876, antiquarian GW Ormerod made drawings of prehistoric circles of ironworks and field systems a few miles west of Chagford. This was usually the end of a prehistoric site at the time, usually followed by a visit from the Dartmoor Exploration Committee. These were a dedicated group of antiquarians whose techniques of archaeological investigation were "brutal". Today such a place is difficult to interpret thanks to their methods and penchant for "restorations". In the case of the Kestor settlement, this was not the case, because for some reason it was never explored by the Dartmoor committee.

Nearby is the Scorhill Stone Circle .

literature

• JW Brailsford: Bronze Age Stone Monuments of Dartmoor . Antiquity 12 (number 48), 1938, 454

Web links

• Description Engl. and pictures
• Description Engl. and pictures
• Description Engl. and pictures
• Description Engl. and pictures

Coordinates: 50 ° 39 '57.4 "  N , 3 ° 53' 30.9"  W.