Cosdon Hill, also called Cosdon Beacon, or Cawsand Beacon, is one of the highest hills on

Dartmoor Dartmoor is an upland area in southern Devon, South West England. The moorland and surrounding land has been protected by National Park status since 1951. Dartmoor National Park covers . The granite that forms the uplands dates from the Carb ...

, in

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

, England. It has numerous traces of prehistoric occupation.

Description

Cosdon is a large, rounded hill that rises to . The first written record of the hill is to the ''Hoga de Cossdonne'' in 1240. The name Cossdonne seems to mean "Cost(a)'s hill", where "Cost" or "Costa" is the name of a person. The shape of the hill gives a false impression of size, and for many years Cosdon was thought to be the highest on Dartmoor. The surveyors of the Principal Triangulation of Great Britain took bearings that resulted in the first

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 ...

map of Dartmoor in 1809, which showed that Yes Tor was higher. However, in 1830 Samuel Rowe still wrote that Cawson or Cosdon hill was the highest in Dartmoor. An 1894 guide for cyclists going from

Exeter Exeter ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and the county town of Devon in South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter w ...

to Launceston said, "So vast is the bulk of Cosdon that, were is not for the cloud mists that so often drift round his brow, one would hardly at first sight credit his height of 1799 feet." From the summit of Cosdon it is often possible to see the

English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...

from

Teignmouth Teignmouth ( ) is a seaside town, fishing port and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the English county of Devon. It is on the north bank of the estuary mouth of the River Teign, about south of Exeter. The town had a population of 14 ...

to Start Point, and on a clear day the

Bristol Channel The Bristol Channel (, literal translation: "Severn Sea") is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales (from Pembrokeshire to the Vale of Glamorgan) and South West England (from Devon to North Somerset). It extends ...

may be visible. The hill provides an excellent view over Dartmoor. As Thomas Clifton Paris wrote in 1865, "Far and wide stretch its desolate hills, the ancient haunt of wolves and wild deer, and barbarians as untamed; a solitary wondrous region, everywhere darkened by morasses, but piled with fantastic rocks and glowing with innumerable tints."

History

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

flint axe has been found at the western foot of the hill. There were nine

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

settlements around the western edge of the hill and two associated reaves, or stone walls, that may have marked the boundaries between territories. There are also many stone cairns, kistvaens, stone rows and what may be a stone circle. Some of these have been badly damaged by stones being removed later for other uses. There is a very large cairn on the summit, which may well have been the site of a beacon. An 1896 report described three parallel lines of stones, starting from a cairn surrounded by a circle, on the North Tawton Common on the east side of Cosdon. The report noted that a wall was being built around a large slice of the common, and masons had been working for several years breaking up and removing stones for the wall. There were signs that an inner circle was buried in the cairn. Two kistvaens were found within the cairn. One was intact but the coverer and two side stones had been taken from the other. Dartmoor was called a forest in 1238. It was granted by

Henry III of England Henry III (1 October 1207 – 16 November 1272), also known as Henry of Winchester, was King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine from 1216 until his death in 1272. The son of John, King of England, King John and Isabella of Ang ...

to his brother, Richard, Earl of Cornwall and Poictou, in 1248. The extent of the Forest of Dartmoor was verified by the solemn oath of twelve Perambulators. The commissioners began their perambulation at Cosdon Hill in the north quarter of Dartmoor, then followed a circuit of the moor, returning to the starting point at Cosdon. Samuel Rowe (1793–1853), Vicar of

Crediton Crediton is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Mid Devon district of Devon, England. It stands on the A377 road, A377 Exeter to Barnstaple road at the junction with the A3072 road to Tiverton, Devon, Tiverton, north w ...

, noted in 1848 that they started at a point near the foot of the hill called ''Hoga de Cosdowne'', and said this must have been near the banks of the Taw close to Sticklepath. Arthur B. Prowse wrote in 1892 that the starting point must have simply been the summit of the hill. In the 1840s an

adit An adit (from Latin ''aditus'', entrance) or stulm is a horizontal or nearly horizontal passage to an underground mine. Miners can use adits for access, drainage, ventilation, and extracting minerals at the lowest convenient level. Adits are a ...

was driven into the hill, and lodes of mispickel and copper ore were found. The shaft of the Ivy Tor Copper mine was sunk in 1851, and the mine continued to be worked for several years. By 1867 Ivy Tor had been united with Copper Hill to form Belstone Consoles, on the

river Tavy The Tavy () is a river on Dartmoor, Devon, England. The name derives from the Brythonic languages, Brythonic root , once thought to mean 'dark' but now generally understood to mean 'to flow'. It has given its name to the town of Tavistock and ...

. The mispickel at Ivy Tor contained

bismuth Bismuth is a chemical element; it has symbol Bi and atomic number 83. It is a post-transition metal and one of the pnictogens, with chemical properties resembling its lighter group 15 siblings arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth occurs nat ...

. Actinolite and

feldspar Feldspar ( ; sometimes spelled felspar) is a group of rock-forming aluminium tectosilicate minerals, also containing other cations such as sodium, calcium, potassium, or barium. The most common members of the feldspar group are the ''plagiocl ...

were also found at Ivy Tor. For some time the hill was a shooting moor for grouse and occasional deer. Some granite shooting butts can still be seen on the north and east of the hill. There is a trig point, Flush Bracket Number S5362, on the summit of the hill, from which a wide area of country can be viewed.

''On Cawsand Beacon''

Elias Tozer (1825–73) wrote,

Notes

Sources

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External links

{{authority control Dartmoor Hills of Devon