A collection of walks, discoveries, insights and pictures of exploring Dartmoor National Park
September 4, 2020
THE DARTMEET ‘MONUMENT’
The monument – a hut circle (prehistoric homestead) on Dartmeet Hill with royal connections. This is a tale of two stones in a hut circle, which had been previously prostrate, were (re) erected as a Queen Victoria Jubilee Memorial in 1887. The location is on the opposite side of the road from the Coffin Stone, just uphill from Badgers Holt and Dartmeet. The ‘Monument’ is / was the local name for this site.
Bibliography
Jeremy Butler – (1991) – Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities: Volume One – The East, 125, Map 14, Site 1
Legendary Dartmoor web site
John Lloyd Warden Page – (1896) – An Exploration of Dartmoor and its Antiquities (fourth edition) – pages 241/2
Location of the ‘Monument’ in relation to the perhaps more well known Coffin Stone and Dartmeet. It is located at SX67675 73464Picture from Robert Burnard, from circa 1887. Burnard wrote on the picture “Prehistoric remains on slopes of Yar Tor near Dartmeet. The two upright stones were prostrate but this autumn were set by Mr Rose of Badgers Halt as a Jubilee Memorial”. Badgers Halt was the summer residence of Mr Rose, who, I believe was locally known as ‘The Badger’ ”.Almost the same angle as Burnard’s picture, both stones now prostrate again.These two stones match the ones in the Burnard photograph.The hut circle, looking west over the (East) Dart Valley. Recorded by Butler as being approximately 6.5 metres in diameter. The ‘Monument’ looking South over towards Holne Moor
On pages 241 / 242 of the John Lloyd Warden Page book, he states of a trip down Dartmeet Hill from Yar Tor: “Instead of making direct for Dartmeet Bridge, we descend the southern slope of the tor, and, when near the road, shall be struck by two tall granite pillars rising from the ‘clatters’ to the height of about seven feet. A nearer inspection will reveal the fact that they form the door jams of a fine hut circle, and have been but recently erected” *
* Footnote: “On inquiring of a moor-man whom I met just below, I was informed that these stones had been set up on ‘Jubilee Day’ by a neighbouring antiquary. He further gave it as his opinion that the relic thus marked out from the adjacent boulders was a ‘sacred circle’ which it certainly is not“.
