Yellowmead stone circle near Sheepstor 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, is a

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 ...

concentric stone circle consisting of four rings of stones set within one another. The largest is 20 metres wide and the smallest, 6 metres. It is located on Yellowmead Down. The circles once encircled a burial

cairn A cairn is a human-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehistory, t ...

although this is now barely visible. To the south west, several possible

stone row A stone row or stone alignment is a linear arrangement of megalithic standing stones set at intervals along a common axis or series of axes, usually dating from the later Neolithic or Bronze Age.Power (1997), p.23 Rows may be individual or groupe ...

s lead away, crossed by a post-medieval

leat A leat (; also lete or leet, or millstream) is the name, common in the south and west of England and in Wales, for an artificial watercourse or aqueduct dug into the ground, especially one supplying water to a watermill or its mill pond. Othe ...

that once served a nearby

tin Tin is a chemical element; it has symbol Sn () and atomic number 50. A silvery-colored metal, tin is soft enough to be cut with little force, and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, a bar of tin makes a sound, the ...

works. The site was excavated and restored by Rev. H Breton in 1921. In 2008 geophysical surveys and a small excavation were carried out to determine whether the restoration of 1921 had been performed accurately (it had), and to discover whether additional features remain buried in the peat. Fallen stones were found in line with some of the stone rows, suggesting that further features may lie downslope below the leat.

References

External links

*{{cite web, url=http://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/yell_mead.htm, title=Dartmoor's Yellowmead Stone Circle, publisher=Legendary Dartmoor, access-date=2009-04-28, last=Sandles, first=Tim
Pictures from megalithic.co.uk
Archaeological sites on Dartmoor Stone circles in Devon