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Figure 5. Dreikanter from the Budleigh
Salterton Pebblebeds.
Below this there is a thin layer of blackened pebbles. These blackened pebbles are known as ventifacts: wind-faceted and polished stones. Some, termed dreikanter, have a very distinctive triangular appearance with three facets at the top (Figure 5). The dark colour of these pebbles is only a surface varnish caused by desert weathering during the Triassic era. When split open they are ordinary quartzites, like the other pebbles (Perkins 1971: 130).
Today, of course, these beach pebbles provide an endless source of fascination for tourists on the beach: collected, sorted, displayed, thrown in the sea. Semi-precious stones such as carnelian, a smooth and waxy form of quartz, can be found sparkling along the beach which grades down to the sea from banks of pebbles at the top directly beneath the cliffs, to grittier and then finer pebble-free sands, continuously covered and then exposed by the tides. It seems not unreasonable to suggest that the band of pebbles in the cliff, their similarity to those on the beach, the dreikanter, the blackened layer of pebbles, and the band of bright yellow sandstone running through the red sandstone cliffs might also have been of some considerable interest to prehistoric people too.
They may well have asked some 'geological' questions such as: why this dipping band of pebbles sandwiched in the cliffs between the red sandstone rocks? What was its origin? What was the relationship between the pebbles in the cliffs and those found on the beach below the cliffs and beside the sea? How might the significance of the distinctive surface patina of blackened pebbles have been understood and the bright band of yellow sandstone above it? In precisely the same manner as for the contemporary geologist, any knowledge and understanding of these things would depend on empirical observation and making sense of the strata seen in the cliffs. However, the logical premises for doing so would, of course, have been radically different.
From the beach to the heathlands
The Pebble Beds extend north and inland from the seashore for a distance of about 13 km. Today these underlie the barren east Devon heathlands, fringed by marls and clays to the west and the east. This heathland zone is in places about 2-3 km wide and almost continuous, from south-north only being broken up today by pockets of improved agricultural land. The rich pasture land of the marls and clays ends abruptly where the Pebble Beds begin to be replaced by bracken, pine, heather and gorse.
The western side of the Pebble Beds is defined by a distinct scarp slope (see Figure 2). The highest point at Woodbury Common (183 m) is marked out by the Iron Age hillfort of Woodbury Castle and its associated cross-ridge dyke. Here the scarp is about 20 m or so high rising up quite steeply from the lower undulating marls to the west. To the north and south the scarp edge is somewhat more broken, less steep and pronounced, but it nevertheless forms a significant landscape edge or boundary. From the western scarp the land dips eastwards quite gently to the Otter valley, and towards the south and the sea. The overall dip of the land is from the north-west (high) to the south-east (low), thus more or less replicating the dip in the band of pebbles seen in the sea cliffs at Budleigh Salterton.
At the base of the western scarp there is a spring line. To the east of it the sloping heathlands are broken up throughout by small valleys that sometimes originate in broader and boggy irregular basins. The Pebble Bed heathlands are highly porous and drain quickly. Small, east to west or north-west to south-east fast flowing streams now occur in the valleys where the water has cut down to the marls below. Further up beyond the surface streams there are dry valleys formed in permafrost conditions during glacial periods. Anywhere where the vegetation is absent or disturbed, in the stream beds, on exposures on the often quite steep sides of the valleys, and on paths and trackways crossing the heathlands, pebbles are exposed at the surface (Figure 6).
Figure 6. Pebbles exposed in a stream bed on Aylesbeare
Common.
These are precisely of the same ungraded and multicoloured character as those found on the beach and include blackened ventifacts. The only difference is that the further you walk inland to the north across the pebble heathlands the smaller the average pebble size tends to be.
Today most of the area where the Pebble Beds occur is uncultivated and ungrazed, covered with bracken, heather and gorse and contrasting utterly with the rich pasture on the marls to the west and the east (Figure 7).
Figure 7. Looking to the south-east across the Pebblebed
Heathland on Bicton Common.
Farms and villages are sited where streams emerge from the heathlands. Parish boundaries extend from the rich pasture land up onto the commonland of the heathlands, both to their west, up the scarp slope, and to the east, across the dip slope, ensuring that each had its share of fertile agricultural land as well as uncultivated grazing land.
While few animals graze the commons today, in the historical past, the heathlands provided important and substantial areas of rough grazing, principally for sheep, and the collection of other resources: peat and furze for fuel (Brighouse 1991). The peat, except in the valley bottoms, is largely post Bronze Age in date. The dry, thin and gravelly soils of the commons could never provide much in the way of productive arable land, and the contrast in both vegetation and land use between the Pebble Bed areas and those covered by the surrounding marls, either in the present or in the prehistoric past, could not be greater. Today trees grow naturally (there are numerous recent pine plantations) only on the lower slopes of the Pebble Beds. The original vegetation on the surrounding marls would have been dense deciduous forest. The plant remains analyzed from these lowland areas to the north of the Pebble Beds in recent excavations in advance of the A30 improvement scheme demonstrated significant woodland clearance and the presence of a mixture of local habitats and resource use during the Neolithic and Bronze Age. The commonest habitat type represented was arable followed by grassland and included shrub/woodland and woodland/grassland (Clapham and Stevens 1999: 196ff.). In the Pebble Bed areas the original forest would either have been locally absent altogether or far lighter and more open. It seems highly likely that both during the Neolithic and Bronze Age the primary uses of the heathland areas would have been for plant gathering and hunting and pasture for domesticates with any permanent settlement occurring off the heathlands and along the spring and stream lines to the west, north and east. Pollen analysis from the old land surface underlying the ramparts of the Woodbury Castle Iron Age hillfort and cross ridge dyke demonstrate the local dominance of pasture at that time with pollen from grasses forming more than half the total (Dimbleby in Miles 1975). The recent excavations along the line of the new A30 road from Honiton to Exeter have revealed a series of Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements, some associated with field systems, situated in precisely the locations we might expect: near to watercourses in low lying areas, just to the north-east of the northernmost extent of the Pebble Beds (Fitzpatrick et al. 1999).
Looking out to a world beyond
Standing on Woodbury Beacon there is a magnificent and panoramic view of the landscape surrounding the Pebble Bed heathlands. To the west one looks across the great line of the Exe estuary to the unbroken ridge of the Haldon Hills running along its eastern edge (Figure 8).
Figure 8. The view to the west to the Haldon Hills from
Woodbury Castle.
Further west still over the line of the Haldon Hills there are glimpses of the tor crowned high peaks of Dartmoor. High Willhays and Ugborough Beacon, are just visible some 48 km distant. To the north-west the Raddon Hills capped by a Neolithic causewayed enclosure and later Iron Age hillfort frame the near landscape. To the north the line of the Blackdown Hills is prominent with another Neolithic causewayed enclosure and Iron Age hillfort at Hembury occupying a prominent southern spur. Way beyond the highest point on Exmoor, Dunkery Beacon, some 58 km distant and the Quantock Hills, can be seen on a clear day. To the north-east the hill island of Dumpdon.
Figure 9. Dumpdon Hill in the Honiton Gap seen from the
South-west.
Dumpdon, (Figure 9) crowned by another hillfort, and possibly another Neolithic causewayed enclosure, is prominent in the Honiton gap created through the Blackdown Hills by the River Otter. To the east the landscape is framed by the broad Otter valley, and the almost unbroken line of the East Hill and Peak Hill ridges which together block any view further in this direction (Figure 10).
Figure 10. Barrow 17 crowned by pine trees seen from the
north-west with the continuous line of the East Hill
ridge beyond.
Figure 11. The distinctive triangular shape of
High Peak on the horizon.
To the south-east High Peak, with its distinctive triangular-shaped profile is a dominant coastal landmark (Figure 11). Beyond it there are more distant views across Lyme Bay to the Isle of Portland 70 km distant: glimpses into other worlds and different landscapes.
But for the most part views out from the rest and lower areas of the Pebble Bed ridge are strikingly restricted, by the higher hills that surround them: the unbroken line of the Haldon Hills to the west, the more irregular line of the Blackdown and Raddon Hills to the north and the East Hill and Peak Hill ridges to the east. These all rise up fairly abruptly above river valleys and are flat-topped. The eastern scarp slopes of the Haldon Hills and the western scarp of the Peak and East Hill ridges appear remarkably uniform from the Pebble Beds. This contrasts markedly with the appearance of both from the other side where all these ridges are deeply indented with coombes and valley systems. Their most uniform and regular scarp slopes face towards the Pebble Beds.
The East Devon heathlands are thus visually surrounded by higher hills on three sides, by the north-south line of the Exe and its estuary to the west and the broad lower part of the Otter valley to the east, and by the sea to the south: a landscape that is both peculiarly distinctive, framed or bounded. When the Otter and Exe valleys fill with mists the ridge and hilltops are dramatically transformed appearing to be islands enveloped in a grey sea. On the eastern side there are three very significant gaps through the ridge line: that between High Peak and the Peak Hill Ridge to the south-east by the sea, the Sidmouth Gap in the middle to the east and the Honiton gap between the East Hill ridge and the Blackdown Hills to the north-west. No dramatic gaps through the hills and ridges occur to the west or the north. The Sidmouth Gap (see Figure 24) in particular is a major topographic landmark that has more than a local significance. It is visible from as far away as the southern edge of Exmoor to the north.
What makes this landscape so special is not only the local presence of the pebble heathland but the hills that physically and visually hem it in with significant gaps on the eastern side. None of the surrounding ridges and hills have any Pebble Bed outcrops or exposures. To the west the Haldon Hills are covered by grey and white flinty gravels. The Blackdown Hills to the north and the East Hill and Peak Hill ridges to the east are capped with substantial layers of clay with flints and chert derived from the underlying greensand (paradoxically grey to grey-brown to yellow in colour) as is High Peak to the south-east (Woodward and Ussher 1911: 67ff.). All these surrounding hills thus contrast greatly with the much lower rolling Pebble Bed heathlands in terms of their far greater height, their much more pronounced scarp slopes, and the sharp, angular and jagged stones that cover them. Sensorily encountering the bones of this landscape we move from the smooth and rolling heathlands, with exposures of smooth rounded multicoloured pebbles, to higher flat-topped hills with steep scarps covered with brittle, irregular and jagged material of fairly uniform and dull colour, an important series of visual, tactile and colour contrasts (Figure 12).
Figure 12. Left: Gravels on the top of Peak Hill. Centre: Haldon Hill gravels. Right: Pebblebed Pebbles.
Another contrast occurs between the stones that may be observed along the ridges and hills and those exposed along the rivers. The numerous river cliffs which occur along the lower course of the Otter are all exposures of the Otter sandstone as are those found along the Exe estaury at Lympstone. Along the Exe there are very limited exposures compared with those found along the lower course of the river Otter. Immediately to the north and south of Ottery St Mary these are grey-green in colour. Beyond here all the way south to the sea, where the river passes the Pebble Bed heathlands to the west these river cliffs are all bright red in colour. They occur along its eastern side except in a short stretch between Newton Poppleford and Colaton Raleigh where they are on the western side. By contrast, nowhere along the course of the Otter can the exposed stratum of the Pebble Beds be seen.
Walking north, east or west, off the heathlands the pebbles rapidly disappear under the surrounding marls. None are exposed along the sands and muds of the Exe. Redeposited material does occur locally in the river bed along the Otter river valley particularly in its lower stretches from Ottery St Mary southwards to the sea at Budleigh Salterton. In the upper reaches of this stretch of the river the pebbles are few and the river bed is largely made up of angular gravels largely derived from the clay with flints capping of East Hill. Lower down the river in some places between Tipton St John and Colaton Raleigh Pebble Bed material locally dominates. Newton Poppleford is named after the ford crossing the pebbles or 'popples' derived from the Pebble Beds that are numerous here along the river course. In the villages and farms near to the heathlands pebbles were an historically significant decorative local building material. Today many houses and walls have patterned pebble surfaces. Tightly packed pebbles were also used as ‘popple’ flooring for external pavements, yards and house and barn interiors (Figure 13).
Figure 13. Wall with pebble facing, Budleigh Salterton.
This material sometimes lain in fan-shaped arrangments was used in many farm houses and formed the original floor of Woodbury church before imported stone was lain down in 1621 (Brighouse 1991). An interest in collecting and building with pebbles and making patterns out of them has a long recent history and an interest in them goes back at least as early as the Neolithic.
The Mesolithic and Neolithic
Mesolithic and Neolithic finds from the Pebble Bed heathlands consist of a few finds of Neolithic axes and mixed surface flint scatters in the central Blackhill area of the heathlands containing both Mesolithic and Neolithic material and two Mesolithic flint scatters to the south and south-west of Woodbury Castle (Wymer and Bonsall 1977; Smith 1956). These are all on the highest areas of the heathlands. Beyond the heathlands Mesolithic material was recovered from the excavations at Hembury (Berridge 1986). Neolithic flint scatters are recorded along the coast to the west of High Peak and to the south and north of Otterton, on Mutter's Moor, part of the Peak Hill ridge, at Patteson’s Cross just to the north of Ottery St Mary and a series of others much further north along the Exe valley around Nether Exe (Miles 1976; Pearce 1979; Griffith and Quinell 1999a). Besides these surface flint scatters Neolithic settlement and ritual deposition in pits is documented from the A30 excavations at Castle Hill and Long Range (Fitxpatrick et al. 1999). A house together with possible enclosures (for animals?- the land was never ploughed) on the top of the Haldon Hills (Willock 1933; 1937; Gent and Quinnell 1999a) has long been known at Haldon Belvedere. There are three known Neolithic causewayed enclosures and/or hill top settlements on High Peak, at Hembury and at Raddon a much greater distance away to the north-west (Gent and Quinnell 1999).
High Peak (see Figure 11) is the highest and most distinctive point along this stretch of the East Devon coastline. Although it is considerably lower (157 m) than either the Peak Hill or East Hill (highest point: 246 m) ridges to its north both of which rise up to 200 m and more, it appears both higher and more prominent because of its relative isolation, distinctive triangular shape, and coastal situation. This hill, in common with all the coastal and almost all the river cliffs in this area is distinctively red. Water running out of the cliff face down onto the beach is orange-red in colour. The hill is capped with clay with the yellow/grey-green and white of the clay with flints and greensand deposits making up the top third of the hill. The lower two thirds of the hill consist of bright red sandstone that is smooth and soft compared with the overlying deposits. Pollard mentions that the Budleigh Salterton Pebble Beds also reappear in a very thin band right at the bottom of the cliffs by the sea (Pollard 1966: 38). However, close inspection of the cliffs, which are scoured at low tide revealed that this is not the case. The beach immediately below High Peak is strewn with jagged boulders derived from the greenstone and chert capping of the hill. The red sands which extend east to Sidmouth together with a thin band of pebbles immediately below the cliffs are absent here. Small coves do contain a small amount of pebble material but this is identical to that occuring further along the beach towards Sidmouth and is derived from the greensand, chert and clay with flints capping of the coastal hills. However, immediately beneath High Peak some large Budeligh Salterton or Bunter type pebbles do occur amongst the greensand blocks exposed at low tide. The most likely explanation is that this is derived from pebbles taken to the top of High Peak by human agency and subsequently eroded away down the cliff face.
Excavations on High Peak revealed traces of a possible Neolithic causewayed enclosure on top of the hill, virtually all of which has been subsequently destroyed along with the ramparts of a later Dark Age hillfort, by coastal erosion. The Neolithic remains included a short ditch segment, rock-cut in its lower part through the greensand and underlying chert bands with a primary fill that included charcoal, bone fragments and flint flakes with pottery in the upper fill (Pollard 1966: 41). Pollard also identified 'cooking areas' with flint and pottery scatters and three pits. Two of these had regular flint linings. The pottery recovered was of two principal types and identical to that from Hembury (see below). Most flints were of local material but included two pieces of Portland chert and black flint derived from Beer (ibid: 47-8; Tingle 1998). Amongst the groundstone axe fragments there is more exotic material: a jadeite piece with an Alpine origin and a picrite piece from Callington, Cornwall. Other groundstone axes were made from the local greensand while a number of pebbles, showing signs of usage, from the Budleigh Salterton Pebble Beds, were found amongst the Neolithic material (ibid: 52).
As elsewhere in southern England , causewayed enclosures began to be built in the 37th century cal BC (Whittle 2007: 137-8; Whittle 2007a). Radiocarbon dates have suggested that the Neolithic occupations on High Peak and that on Hembury were roughly contemporary (Pollard 1967: 41) but unfortunately the 1960s dates from Hembury and thise from High Peak were from bulk samples and not very reliable. The enclosure at Raddon is somewhat later (Gent and Quinnell 1999: 64). The causewayed enclosure at Hembury occupies the southern tip of a prominent spur of the Blackdown Hills with extensive vistas to the south across the Pebble Bed heathlands to the sea. Liddell's excavations revealed eight ditch and low bank sections with intervening causeways cutting across the spur with house structures and substantial occupation debris inside indicating permanent settlement (Liddell 1929-32a,b.c; 1936). A second ditch line was also found to the north and further ditches by Todd's re-examination of the northern part of the spur indicating the presence of multiple enclosures (Todd 1984).
Artefact finds included pottery tempered with local quartzites derived from crushed Bunter pebbles, imported gabbroic pottery from the Lizard peninsula, Cornwall, implements made from Beer flint, and a few of Portland chert, others from closer flint sources only a few km away, greenstone axes of Cornish origin, and from north Devon, querns and rubbing stones from the local Pebble Beds, beads of steatite and jet, possibly from Spain and Brittany (Liddell 1929-32a,b,c).
The excavated materials from High Peak and Hembury indicate a systematic gathering together of artefacts and raw materials from (i) the immediate locality; (ii) the Pebble Bed areas which had to be crossed to move between these two places, situated as these places are just to the north and the south respectively, of the area where they are exposed, and more distant sources at a variable distance away- Beer Head, Portland, Exmoor, Dartmoor, Cornwall, and those from very distant origins as far afield as the Alps and Spain. Materials and artefacts used on these two Neolithic enclosures thus brought together and incorporated elements drawn from the immediate and more distant landscape at a variety of scales. Some of these landscapes such as the local Pebble Bed heathlands or Beer Head could be crossed or visited in a day. Other more distant places (Portland, Dartmoor, Exmoor) could be seen on the far horizon. Finally there were artefacts and materials brought from places that could never be experienced while remaining in place or travelling through this local landscape. This pattern of raw material utilization seems to contrast with the Neolithic and Bronze Age domestic assemblages found during the A30 excavations in which stone material other than flaked flint and chert is rare and of local origin (Mepham 1999: 210-11). It appears that the curation and use of pebbles was confined to meeting places of especial significance and ceremonial importance. During the Neolithic they were associated with the living while in the Bronze Age they became associated with the dead.
Bronze Age barrows in the landscape
There is no known evidence of Neolithic mortuary practices from this area of East Devon. The excavations at High Peak, Raddon and Hembury revealed no human remains from the enclosure ditches or interiors, and no long barrows or other mortuary monuments were constructed. One rectilinear structure at Castle Hill excavated in advance of the A30 construction has been suggested to be a ‘long mortuary enclosure’ but there is no direct evidence to suggest a funerary use (Fitzpatrick et al. 1990: 213). Another has been suggested to be part of a possible cursus monument, but again the evidence is equivocal. It remains the case that the first certain monuments to be constructed in this area of east Devon are round barrows of early Bronze Age date. The Bronze Age barrow distribution in this area of the East Devon landscape between the Exe and the Otter is almost exclusively confined to the pebbly heathlands. Around 26 barrows survive as upstanding monuments. There are also a number of ring ditches just beyond the limits of the present-day heathland areas revealed as cropmarks through an important campaign of aerial photography undertaken by Griffith since 1983 (Griffith 1999: 8). These ring ditches may be barrows or alternatively traces of round houses. In this respect it is interesting to note that while the A30 excavations revealed the presence of round houses with circular timber post settings Bronze Age barrows or other evidence of funerary activity was entirely absent. It therefore seems likely that the Pebble Beds heatlands constituted a reserved area in the landscape for the burial of the ancestral dead being fringed by the settlements of the living.
The surviving monuments are all round barrows and at least eight have a surrounding ditch. They vary in diameter from small structures of between 4-10m (16 or c. 60%) to much more substantial mounds, three of which are over 20 m. Two, of the largest barrows, including the very largest mound (32m in diameter), appear to be flat-topped rather than rounded in profile. The smaller barrows are rarely more than 1m high while the larger mounds vary in height between 1.5 and 3.5 m (Table 1; Figures 14-16). These monuments were all constructed from the local pebbles which show through wherever the thin soil covering is eroded. They may best be described as pebble cairns.
Figure 14. The large summit barrow on
Aylesbeare Common.
Figure 15. Barrow 18 on the western scarp edge
of the Pebblebeds.
Figure 16. Barrow 12 in the centre of a spur
between valleys seen from the east.
One of these barrows (Woodbury e; Fig. 2: 16) was excavated by Carter in 1930 and 1936 (see Background to
the Project page). Under a thin turf layer he reports a surface patterning of large pebbles in various 'geometric' forms. The centre of the mound had, according to Carter, surface patterns of a circle and an ellipse. A ring of large pebbles surrounded the edge of the mound. At about ground level a large blue stone overlay a pebble cairn containing another blue stone. Under this was an 'ashy layer' resting on the undisturbed Pebble Beds. At the bottom of this ashy layer he discovered decorated beaker sherds, a small pebble of dark-coloured stone, and a barbed and tanged arrowhead. Below this was a further pebble cairn in a pit with blue stones on top and underneath (Carter 1936: 291) (Figure 17). Excavations around the cairn revealed that it was surrounded by a pebbled pattern extending 'on all sides like a carpet for some distance on the plain of the Common, the overall diameter being about 50' [16m] (ibid: 292) (Figure 18). To the south-east of the mound in this pebble platform/pattern a Mesolithic axe hammer was found at the base of a small cairn and below it a layer of small quartzite pebbles. Other 'subsoil cairns' (i.e. small pebble piles) at the east and west cardinal points of the mound were found on the edge of the pavement.
Figure 17. Carter’s section drawing of the Woodbury e cairn.
Figure 18: The Woodbury e pebble cairn excavated by Carter with its external pebble
Pavement. Source: Carter archive
Carter's report seems to suggest that the large cairn formed a central focus for a patterned pebble skirt surrounding it. Both covered preexisting small pebble cairns in pits,some with especially selected blue coloured stones (rare in the Pebble Beds: they occur in a ratio of 1: 1,000 ibid: 284). (see Blue Stones pages). The central cairn contained an Early Bronze Age Beaker burial or deposit. The presence of Mesolithic material in a small pebble cairn at this location indicates long-term continuities in both the usage of specific locations across the heathlands and a fascination with the symbolic qualities of the pebbles themselves.
Carter further excavated a whole series of other pebble structures or 'mounds' on both Woodbury and Aylesbeare Commons (Carter 1936; 1938). In all these cases a large cairn was absent: 'about thirty spots have been excavated. My attention was mainly directed to the countless mounds there, of dimensions barely perceptible except on waste recently cleared by fire' (ibid: 283). Woodbury AA6, (Carter's numbering system), about 200 m south of Four Firs (see Figure 2) is described as a saucer-shaped depression about 0.5 m deep and 5 m in diameter with a fire pit west of centre. The base of the depression was found to be covered with geometric arrangements of pebbles, small pebble cairns and selected blue-stones and areas of pebble paving/platforms.
Woodbury QL, about 100m north-east of AA6 was a circular mound about 5 m in diameter and 0.5 m high with elaborate pebble patterns on its surface and small pebble cairns and selected blue stones beneath. Carter suggests that some of these mark out the east and west cardinal points. In 'the N.E. quadrant of the mound was a small circle of pebbles under which in succession were two blue stones and (on the bottom level) a circle of stones' (Carter 1936: 286). The only finds of artefacts from these excavations were single flint flakes.
On Aylesbeare Common just to the north and down-slope from the two ridge-top cairns (Figures 2 and 14). Carter discovered a series of twenty-two mounds after swaling, or burning. Two of these were described as 'keyhole' mounds. They consisted of a rectangular mound about 3m long, 2m wide and less than 10cm high, narrowing in the middle, and attached to a circular platform about 4 m in diameter (Carter 1938: 92). Under Aylsebeare 1 a pit had been excavated under the circular platform to a depth of about 1 m. 'The floor had been smoothed, pebbles laid thereon in some pattern, and prolonged fires burnt on the floor, the ashes of which had been swept to the sides, where they had hardened into a heavy cement' (ibid: 92). There was no charcoal. Many of the other mounds examined by Carter covered layers of ash, small pebble cairns, arrangements or patterns of pebbles, pits and bluestones. Some were on spring lines (ibid: 94).
What Carter's excavations seem to reveal is a whole series of unique pebble structures in close proximity to some of the pebble cairns/barrows and probably connected with the ceremonies taking place at them although he himself claimed (ignoring evidence to the contrary such as the beaker sherds in the Woodbury e barrow) that they were of later Iron Age date. He describes some as being of ‘keyhole type’ i.e. a circular mound linked to a rectangular platform or pavement. Some of these resembled double-headed ceremonial axes in form (Figures 19 and 20). These pebble structures are not monumental, only about 10 cm or less high, and there are certainly many more to be discovered.
Figure 19. Pebble pavement on Aylesbeare
Common in the shape of a double headed
Axe, Source: Carter archive.
Figure 20. Axe blade shaped pavement on
Aylesbeare Common. Source: Carter
archive.
The character of the scrub vegetation on the Pebble Bed heathlands with the gorse sometimes growing to over 2m in height and elsewhere the dense heather cover largely precludes the possibility of discovering any further pebble structures today in the absence of swaling or burning, a common practice in the past, which permitted Carter's own discoveries. The exact status of these mounds in the absence of any modern excavations or dating evidence remains somewhat enigmatic. They might be fairly recent in date but the presence of flint in some, the absence of any modern find material, and the fact that they occur in the vicinity of Bronze Age barrows seems to indicate a genuinely prehistoric date.
In contrast to these low and discrete pebble structures some of the barrows or pebble cairns were clearly intended as monumental constructions, punctuating and marking the landscape and visible for long distances. Others however, are in much more discrete and hidden locations. The very largest barrows all occur on ridge tops or localised high points in the landscape. By contrast the smaller barrows occur in the middle of low sloping spurs between valleys, on the sides of slopes rather than on the tops of ridges, or in dry valley bottoms. There is thus an important association between barrow size and height. The lower down the barrows are situated in the landscape, the smaller and less conspicuous they tend to be. This pattern of constructing large barrows in high places is quite consistent with that known for barrows elsewhere in south-west England and in particular on the uplands of Dartmoor, Bodmin Moor, and Exmoor.
The large ridge top barrows all occur in the western and northern areas of the overall distribution. Barrows 17 and 18, (see Figures 10 & 15) both situated on the edge of the western scarp slope are unusual in that they can be seen skylined on the horizon far far away to the west, from both the Exe valley and from the top of the Haldon and Raddon Hills. They punctuate the skyline and must have been located so as to be highly visible landmarks when seen from the west or north-west. These barrows are also visible from long distances away to the east and can be seen from the East Hill and Peak Hill ridges. They also have the highest degree of intervisibility with others on the pebble heathlands (Figure 21). Other large barrows are sited in the landscape so as to be most visually impressive when seen from long distances away only from the east.
Figure 21. Barrow intervisibility on the
Pebblebed heathlands.
Few can be seen from all but short distances away to either the north or the south (Table 1). Some barrow groups consisting entirely of small mounds such as those on the slopes of Venn Ottery Hill and others on Bicton Common are not intervisible with any others, while those in the south-east Figure 2: nos. 10-15) are only locally intervisible.
Number |
Height |
Diameter |
HASL |
Location Notes |
1 |
- |
1.3 |
159 |
Ridge top. now ploughed out |
2 |
- |
- |
150 |
Ridge top, now ploughed out |
3-7 |
0.3-1 |
4-9 |
110 |
Hillside overlooking Otter valley to east. Barrows run down slope from NW to SE. Five barrows in a staggered row |
8 |
2 |
16 |
160 |
Ridge top |
9 |
1.6 |
21 |
160 |
Ridge top |
10-11 |
0.3 |
0.8-1 |
115 |
Towards end of NW-Se sloping spur between dry valley and valley with stream |
12 |
1.2 |
12 |
95 |
In middle of NW-SE sloping spur below 12 |
13-15 |
0.4-0.7 |
0.4-0.5 |
85 |
In middle of wide NE-SW sloping spur between dry valleys |
16 |
0.3 |
7 |
125 |
In middle of wide NW-Se sloping spur between dry valleys |
17 |
3.5 |
22 |
175 |
On high point on western escarpment edge. |
18 |
3.6 |
32 |
175 |
On local high point on western escarpment. Possibly enlarged for use as a fire beacon |
19 |
1.8 |
14.5 |
130 |
In dip on western escarpment edge. One of four mounds situated on either side of the Four Firs crossroads. This arrangement and the location is peculiar. They are all landscaping moiunds which have been variously attributed to troops stationed on Woodbury Common during the Napoleonic wars or the landscaping work of Lord Rolle of Bicton (Grinsell 1983: 19) |
20 |
1.4 |
18 |
120 |
On upper ridge slope facing south directly above (100m) a spring and stream source |
21 |
1.4 |
18 |
115 |
Same as 20 |
22-3 |
1 |
5 |
90 |
In valley bottom near to the head of the valley and spring and stream source above an extensive bog |
24-6 |
1.3-2 |
7-8 |
150 |
Towards the end of and in the middle of a gently sloping W-E ridge |
Table 1. The dimensions and height above sea level of the barrows on the Pebblebed
Heathlands and location notes.
Four of the barrows (12,16,17,18) occur singly. There are five or six barrow pairs and three groups of three or more barrows. The barrows, as a whole, occupy every different major topographic situation in the landscape:
1. Highest points on the western escarment edge (Nos 17,18)
2. Flat ridge summits (1,2,8,9)
3. In middle of and towards ends of sloping ridge tops (23-25)
4. Upper sloping sides of ridges (20-21)
5. On low sloping spurs between valleys (10-16)
6. On upper slopes of valley sides (3-7)
7. In valley bottoms (22-3)
8. In a dip in the western escarpment edge (19)
The close association of these barrows with valleys, and/or water sources is strong. Barrow 17 while situated on the western escarpment edge is also set just to the north of a shallow valley that gives birth to a stream. Similarly barrows 21-22 are situated on the side of a ridge a few hundred metres away from the head of a stream. Barrows 22-23 are set almost at the bottom of the head of another stream valley above a substantial boggy area. Barrows 10-16 are all on sloping spurs between valleys and near to the source of streams. The barrows, as a whole, then occupy both high and 'dry' locations in the landscape and are associated with water and valleys that give birth to streams running in beds of pebbles. The barrows are all associated with streams draining the pebble heathlands that flow east or south-east to join the river Otter in its passage towards the sea. There are only two barrows/ring ditches known from the marls due west of the heathlands between them and the river Exe. Others cluster in the vicinty of Exeter along the Exe valley itself to the north-west (Griffith and Quinnell 1999b: Map 6.5). The barrows on the Pebble Bed heathlands are both linked with each other, and the Otter valley, by valleys and streams which have their sources near to, or beside, them. Carter’s work seems to underline the significance of springs in the vicinity of the barrows. He reports that in low marshy ground south-east of barrow 16 ‘a spring had been carefully paved with pebbles…a cairn had been erected over it and the whole enclosed in a large mound’. There was a flint flake in the cairn and below it on the pavement ‘a beautiful sacramental flint’. The association between some of the pebble structures and springs to the north of barrows 8-9 on Aylesbeare common has already been noted.
The Exe estuary, to the west of the Pebble Bed ridge is a wide and shallow valley of muds and shifting sands (Figure 22). The Otter valley, by contrast, is a valley of pebbles and gravels (Figure 23).
Figure 22. View across the Exe estuary looking
West at low tide
Figure 23. The river Otter at Dotton
Along its course it mixes and combines pebble material washed down from the heathlands and more jagged flints and cherts from the East Hill and Peak Hill ridges. It flows beneath Dumpdon Hill, and its northern tributary, the Tale, is born or has its source, on the eastern side of the spur occupied by the early Neolithic Hembury causewayed enclosure. The Otter flows to the east of High Peak before entering the sea near to the east of the cliffs at Budleigh Salterton where the Pebble Beds are most dramatically exposed.
The sea, to the south, is visible from all but two of the barrow locations. The Peak Hill and East Hill ridges flanking the Otter valley to the east are visible from all but a few. A series of barrows and smaller flint cairns once crowned the tops of these ridges but because of afforestation only a couple now survive on East Hill. Grinsell (1983) records the former presence of at least six from the Peak Hill ridge and fourteen running along the spine of East Hill. There are extensive views from these ridge tops across the Otter valley and the Pebble Bed heathlands to the Haldon Hills and Dartmoor beyond. Some of the barrows and cairns on these ridge spines would certainly have been visible from almost all the barrows on the Pebble Bed heathlands below them. By contrast the Haldon Hills and Hembury are visible from only those barrows situated on ridge top locations or along the western scarp of the heathlands. No barrows are known from Hembury. On the Haldon hills there are at least 26 small barrows and cairns (ibid: 13; Finneran and Turner 2003: 242-3). Because of their small size, distance, and their specific locations (mostly on the upper western slopes of Little and Great Haldon) none of these would have been visible from the barrows on the Pebble Bed heathlands. All these cairns running along the East Hill, Peak Hill and Haldon Hill ridges constructed out of angular and dull materials would have made a striking visual and tactile contrast with the patterned Pebble Bed cairns perhaps objecifying in their material form different social identities and relationships to the east of the Otter and to the west of the Exe: differing landscapes and social worlds.
Ancestral hills and the birth and death of the sun
It is quite striking that High Peak is visible from all of the Bronze Age barrows whatever their position in the landscape. The only ‘barrow’ they are not visible from is an eighteenth or nineteenth century landscaping mound at Four Firs (see Excavations 2008 page) (see Table 2 and Figure 2: No. 19). Given the presence of the Neolithic occupation and probable causewayed enclosure on its summit, it seems highly likely that this was a hill of paramount ancestral significance for the local Bronze Age populations living in the vicinity of the Pebble Beds.
No |
High Peak |
Peak Hill Ridge |
East Hill Ridge |
Dumpdon Hill |
Hembury |
Haldon Hills |
Raddon Hills |
Sea |
1-2 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
3-7 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
|
|
|
+ |
8-9 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
10-11 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
|
|
|
+ |
12-15 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
|
|
|
+ |
16 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
|
|
|
+ |
17 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
|
|
+ |
|
+ |
18 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
+ |
19 |
|
+ |
|
|
|
+ |
+ |
+ |
20-21 |
+* |
+ |
|
|
|
|
|
+ |
22-23 |
+ |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
24-26 |
+* |
+* |
+* |
|
|
|
|
+ |
Table 2. The visibility of principal hills and ridges (see Figure 1) from the East Devon
Pebblebed barrows. *= extrapolated observations taken from nearby barrow locations
because plantations block the view.ef
It is situated either to the east, or south-east or east-south-east of all the barrows. From most of the Pebble Bed barrows the rising sun would first be seen on the winter solstice just to the west of High Peak emerging from the sea. Sunrise at the spring and autumn equinoxes would first be visible through the Sidmouth gap between the Peak Hill and East Hill ridges visible from most. Similarly the rising sun on the summer solstice would first be seen through the Honiton gap (see Table 3 & Figure 24).
Barrow No |
Sidmouth Gap |
Peak Hill Gap |
Honiton Gap |
Most impressive from |
1-2 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
n/a destroyed |
3-7 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
East but small |
8-9 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
East |
10-11 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
East but small |
12 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
East or West |
13-15 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
n/a: very low |
16 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
East or West |
17 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
East or West |
18 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
East or West |
19 |
- |
- |
- |
n/a: probably modern |
20-21 |
- |
+* |
- |
South or East* |
22-23 |
- |
+ |
- |
n/a: in valley bottom |
24-26 |
+* |
+* |
+* |
South or North* |
Table 3. The visibility of the principal gaps through the hills surrounding the
Pebblebed heathlands from the barrows. For locations see Figs. 1, 2 and 25.
*= extrapolated visibility because plantations block the view. The table also
Shows the direction from which each barrow, or barrow group,
looks most impressive from when seen from the surrounding landscape.
Figure 24. The sunrise at the equinox through the Sidmouth gap seen from
the summit barrow (No. 9) on Aylesbeare Common.
The presence of these three gaps to the east of the barrow distribution thus point to the significance of the rising sun as seen from the barrows at significant points during the year. The gaps through the hills effectively served to frame and thus dramatize and animate these important celestial events and the brilliant changes in the colour of the sky from red to yellow. By contrast the setting sun in the west over the Haldon Hills, visible from relatively few of the barrows, is not framed by any dramatic gaps. The Raddon Hills, with their Neolithic causewayed enclosure, may have represented another more distant place of ancestral significance. Situated to the north-west of the barrows they might have been associated with the setting of the sun on the summer solstice (see Figure 25). However, the effect would not have been dramatic and was only visible from a few of
Figure 25. The cosmological landscape of the Pebblebeds
the barrows (Table 2). In relation to the significance of the rising sun as seen from the barrows it is of great interest to note that the entrances to the excavated Bronze Age round houses found during the course of the A30 excavations at Patteson’s Cross and Hayne Lane all face towards the south-east i.e. so as to face the East Hill ridge and in the direction of the rising sun (Fitzpatrick et al. 1990).
Dumpdon Hill, despite its quite considerable distance from the barrows, about 20km away, is visible from a surprising number of them (20 or 77%; Table 2). This, like High Peak, is a hill island situated in the middle of the Honiton Gap. As is the case with High Peak, the river Otter runs beneath it, but to the west rather than the east. Dumpdon Hill is, like Hembury and High Peak, crowned by a hillfort. This is a very likely location for another Neolithic hill top enclosure. Like High Peak, this hill may have had an especial ancestral significance for the Bronze Age pebble cairn builders. At the winter solstice the setting sun would be seen sinking between Little and Great Haldon to the west on its descent into the sea. All these celestial events would only be visible from barrow 18 underlining its significance, but would be known to all.
Rivers of life and rivers of death
The mouth and course of the river Exe to the west of the barrows may have been both actually and conceptually associated with death. By contrast, the Otter to the east, may have been associated with birth and the regeneration of life. These possible associations are worth exploring a little further both with reference to the physical characteristics of the two rivers and their association with barrows. The Exe, with its source on Exmoor, far to the north, is a major river linking different landscapes with Bronze Age settlement and barrows across the south-west peninsular. By contrast, the Otter, with its source in the Blackdown Hills, is of specific local significance. In other words it is far more intimately related to the East Devon landscape and, as discussed above, the locations of the barrows on the Pebble Bed heathlands are intimately related to valleys and streams flowing into it. No such intimate relation can be claimed in relation to the barrow locations and streams flowing west towards the Exe from the spring line at the base of the Pebble Bed scarp.
The lower stretches of the Exe visible, from barrow 18 (See Figure 2) and the highest part of Woodbury Common, are inundated by the sea twice a day as this is a wide tidal estuary. The river meanders sluggishly through shifting mud and sandbanks in an estuary up to 2 km wide (Figure 22 ). The mud and sand is left exposed and then covered by the tides and the smell is salty and brackish. At the mouth of the estuary there are particularly violent and dangerous currents. The water is saline, muddy and unfit to drink. The Exe estuary would make an ideal depository for the bodies of the dead, only a small minority of whom would ever have been buried in the Pebble Bed barrows. Acting as a kind of sump it would soon conceal and bury or wash away the remains of the dead. The Exe could then have provided the ideal place for the disposal and forgetting of the dead. We know from numerous finds of unburnt bones from rivers that river burial took place during the Bronze Age (Bradley and Gordon 1988; Garton et al. 1997). In this respect it is interesting to note the large concentration of Bronze Age barrows clustering in the very bottom and lower slopes of the Exe valley itself just beyond its tidal limit. Here at least 29 are recorded by Grinsell (1983: 13) and about as many more as ring ditches by aerial photography of the same area (Griffith and Quinnell 1999b) just to the north of the symbolically important confluence of the river Yeo or Creedy, the river Exe, and the river Culm about nine km north of the normal tide limit (itself extending about 12 km inland from the river mouth). No barrow cemeteries occur along the bottom of the Otter valley, whose normal tide limit only extends a few kilometres inland. The closest barrows to the Otter itself are a pair of ring ditch sites about 150 m to the east of Wrinkly Cliff, an impressive red sandstone river cliff, just over 1 km to the south of Newton Poppelford in the Pebble Bed heathland area. Otherwise, the nearest to it are the barrows and cairns situated along the East Hill and Peak Hill ridges, those located further to the west in the central Pebble Bed heathlands themselves, and on the spurs and ridges of the Blackdown Hills to the north (Griffith and Quinnell 1999b: Map 6.5).
The river Otter, in contrast to the Exe, has a shallow and stony bed. The water is fresh clear and fast-flowing: a most unsuitable and inappropriate place for the disposal of corpses (see Figure 23). Only its very lowest reaches, the last few kilometres, form a muddy estuary, that is itself today almost completely blocked by an enormous pebble bank at its mouth as a result of west to east longshore drift. A few hundred years ago the river was navigable as far inland as Otterton (now 3 km inland from the mouth). The Otter flows beneath what have been suggested to be two very significant ancestral hills, Dumpdon and High Peak, and mixes together angular stones from these hills together with those derived from the Pebble Bed exposures, a river of life associated with ancestors, pebbles, pebble-cairns, pebble streams and fresh drinking water.
If the Exe, situated to the west, and the dying sun, represented a river of death the Otter to the east might be conceptualized as a river of life. It was associated with the re-born sun, framed and shining through the gaps between the ridges and hills. In relation to the activities of the living and the disposal of remains of their dead, the locations of the barrows on the Pebble Bed heathlands in between these two rivers, can be regarded as betwixt and between liminal places (Figure 25). The pebble cairns erected here, with their complex internal patterning and structural organization, were perhaps associated with the remains of, and offerings to, founding ancestors.
The continued presence of the outcropping Pebble Beds inland from the sea in the form of surface pebbles covering the heathland may well have been recognized and understood as the inland presence of the same band of pebbles seen running through the red sandstone cliffs on the beach at Budleigh Salterton. This band of pebbles might well have been understood by prehistoric populations in a similar manner to the way in which geologists explain it today: as the course of a dead and ancient river. There could, then, be no more fitting place than the Pebble Bed heathlands themselves to erect cairns to the memory of the ancestral dead. The pebbles may have been understood as a special material created by the ancestors, a gift from the dead to the living that was then used to honour the dead.
From the Neolithic onwards there is indisputable evidence, discussed above, for both an interest in and use of the pebbles: their selective procurement, transport and relocation, use in broken form as temper for Neolithic pottery, arrangement into geometric patterns, the construction of large cairns and small pebble structures, the selection and arrangement of pebbles of unusual colour, their association with springs, water sources, the rising sun, and the cardinal directions.
The colours of the land
The significance of colour in archaeological research is only just beginning to be appreciated (Tilley 1996; Jones and MacGregor 2002) although colour symbolism has long been recognized in anthropology. One of the most striking features of the Pebble Beds is the many different colours present. In addition to this their colour constantly changes according to the light and time of day and in relation to the weather. When it is dry the pebbles become duller in hue and loose much of their colour. Rainfall transforms and enhances their surfaces, enriching and enhancing the colour and bringing it to life. Along the beach at Budeleigh Salterton the most colourful pebbles are those washed by the tides rather than those higher up the ridge of the beach. By contrast the angular gravels found on the ridges and hills surrounding the Pebble Beds look pretty similar whether it is wet or dry and are not significantly different. In comparison the colours of the pebbles are in a continual state of process and transformation (see Poetics of Pebbles pages). Young (2005; n.d.) has recently discussed the manner in which surface colour changes in the land are indexical of the enormous power that ancestral forces exert from beneath and below the ground among Aboriginal populations. The surface changes of land and sky are created by the ancestors who are present inside the landscape, present beneath the surface. There is a whole ontology of colour that is a central part of the way people conceive of the potential in coloured things. In particular highly coloured things and things that change colour are regarded as energetically charged. The image of fecund land is one of colourful flux while a loss of colour is associated with a loss of vitality and life force. This idea may be linked to Rowland’s argument that an understanding of materiality can be linked to processes of materialization such that some things and some people are more material and thus powerful than others (Rowlands 2005).
Conclusions
The multi-coloured pebble cairns may thus have been conceived as transitional places situated between the world of the dead and the world of the living. They themselves were constructed from and rested on the colour charged pebbles of an ancestral river connecting together these two domains. The pebble cairns thus represented conceptual entry points into an ancient dry river bed associated with the ancestral dead and their ultimate journey to a nether world beyond and beneath the sea. The small pebble structures associated with the larger pebble cairns might have been used and erected in ceremonies connected both with the Otter, a river of life, (hence the association of some with fresh water springs) and the physical disposal of the remains of the dead in the river Exe. Thus the pebble cairns were monuments and memorials to the memory of the ancestral dead and the old dead river of pebbles associated with them, while the river Exe became the medium by means of which corpses of the vast majority of the recently deceased in the Bronze Age could be moved and themselves transported, in a living river to, another world beneath the sea. Here it is of interest to note that the Otter flows out to the sea through a pebble bar laterally wedged between red sandstone cliffs to both the west and the east just as the Pebble Beds are vertically wedged between red sandstone above and below them in the Budleigh Salterton Cliffs. By contrast the muddy and sandy mouth of the Exe has no blood red cliffs or pebbles bordering its exit to the sea.
The other world may have been conceptualized as a watery world under the feet of the living connected by ancestral and contemporary rivers with the sea through which one entered it. Glimpses of the actual course of the ancestral river to the sea were only visible in the cliffs at Budleigh Salterton. Here a dry river of pebbles could be seen running through the cliffs and disappearing into the pebble beach and the sea. Above this river a layer of 'burning' (blackened triangular shaped pebbles) occurs and above this again, a bright yellow band of sandstone perhaps associated with the rays of the rising sun and thus symbolizing the regeneration of life. Here it is pertinent to note that Owoc has emphasized the significance of yellow clay mound caps and embellishments on Bronze Age barrows in the St Austell area of the south-west peninsula in relation to the deposition of materials and standing stones marking the mid winter sunrise and the midwinter sunset suggesting a direct metaphorical link between the yellow clay and the sun (Owoc 2002: 135-6).
The red cliffs themselves and their pebbles perhaps provided inspiration for the rituals taking place at the barrows and pebble structures involving the burning and blackening of materials inland on the Pebble Bed heathlands. Pebbles are easy to pull out of the ground and lend themselves to sorting activities. They can be handled easily. Each is ibteresting with its own character and yet thay can be sorted into different groups in relation to size or shape or colour or a combination of the three. Pebbles can be curated, ordered and relayed in patterned transformations. Pebbles create the opportunity to re-order the given world. The triangular shape of the dreikanter perhaps provided a minature material metaphor for the distinctively triangular shape of High Peak, the preen invent sacred hill. The old, dead, or ancestral river is seen flowing through the cliffs and running downwards, west to east, in the direction of the rising sun, before reaching the sea. It narrows, rather than widens, where it reaches the sea. By contrast the Exe and Otter rivers both flow north-south and widen in their lower reaches before they enter the sea. The relation between these two watery rivers and the dead ancestral river thus involves a triple inversion, or reversal, in terms of materiality, directionality and breadth. Thus the domain of the dead was an upside down existence compared to that experienced by the living.
Acknowledgements
I am most grateful to Frances Griffith and Wayne Bennett for the very useful comments made on an earlier draft of this chapter which have helped me improve it.
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