Almsworthy Common is a small area of unenclosed land in

Exmoor Exmoor () is loosely defined as an area of hilly open moorland in west Somerset and north Devon in South West England. It is named after the River Exe, the source of which is situated in the centre of the area, two miles north-west of Simons ...

, south-western England. It contains a number of archaeological sites. It is about 2 miles north of Exford roughly 0.5 km² in area, and the

Macmillan Way West The Macmillan Way West is a long-distance footpath in Somerset and Devon, England. It runs for from Castle Cary in Somerset to Barnstaple in Devon. It is one of the Macmillan Ways and connects with the main Macmillan Way at Castle Cary. The ...

passes through it, as does the parish boundary between Exford and

Porlock Porlock is a coastal village in Somerset, England, west of Minehead. At the 2011 census, the village had a population of 1,440. In 2017, Porlock had the highest percentage of elderly population in England, with over 40% being of pensionable ...

. It reaches a height of 453 metres. Stone settings are arrangements of upright stones either scattered randomly or in a roughly geometric pattern. They are the most common form of stone monument found on Exmoor, with 57 conclusively recorded examples in this area. A large number are known to have existed but have been destroyed. 560 m south west of Chetsford Bridge is a stone alignment. The archaeologist Aubrey Burl stated that an "eye of faith" was needed to identify "either a ring or a set of rows." The

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

list it as a "Stone Circle" on their map. In his 1970 study of the archaeology of Exmoor, Leslie Grinsell thought that it was "probably" a stone circle. The common is also the site of one of the best preserved

hut circle In archaeology, a hut circle is a circular or oval depression in the ground which may or may not have a low stone wall around it that used to be the foundation of a round house. The superstructure of such a house would have been made of timber an ...

s on Exmoor.

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

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External links

Almsworthy
at The Megalithic Portal
Almsworthy
at The Modern Antiquarian {{coord, 51.1627, -3.6559, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Archaeological sites in Somerset Buildings and structures in Somerset Scheduled monuments in Somerset History of Somerset Megalithic monuments in England Archaeological sites on Exmoor