Looking for Ages - Explore the Coast

Looking for Ages
Resource guide about the
historic landscape of the
North Devon Coast AONB
04-11-2011
Clare Manning
Standing stone near Damage Barton, Lee
Looking for Ages
The beauty of the North Devon AONB coastal landscape has developed as a result of natural
processes and the actions of people who have lived here for thousands of years.
Looking for Ages is the first in a series of resource guides exploring the historic landscape of north
Devon and helping people read the landscape they see around them.
Travelling through history, we start by exploring North Devon life in the Stone, Bronze and Iron
Ages, through to the times of Roman influence around 2000 years ago; highlighting sites of
interest, features to look out for and helping you imagine the lives of North Devonians in times gone
by.
Looking for Ages
© 2011 North Devon Coast Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty
www.explorethecoast.org
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Bronze Age (4000 - 2800 years
ago)
North Devon's earliest farmers
Bronze Age people were North Devon’s very
first farmers; constructing hillslope enclosures
within the wild landscape where they farmed
crops and raised livestock. The slightly later
example (an Iron Age enclosure) at Bittadon, is
the best known example of such an enclosure
within the North Devon Coast AONB and is
accompanied by several nearby burial mounds.
Watermouth Cove
Early advances in the domestication of animals
and cultivation crept across Europe and into the
UK. Advances in the metal-working
technologies marked the arrival of the Bronze
Age — leaving behind a Bronze spearhead with
a leaf-shaped blade, found at Watermouth
Cove in 1982.
Evidence of Beaker culture, believed to have
introduced alcohol in the form of mead and
beer (!) can be found in pieces of pottery found
on the foreshore at Westward Ho! in 1992.
Beaker migration was widespread across the
whole of Europe during the Bronze Age.
Beaker cultural influence is also linked with the
use of tanged-and-barbed arrowheads, and
burial styles; both of which are found in the
North Devon Coast AONB.
Tumuli at Gallentry Bower near Clovelly
Ancient burial places
Characteristic round-barrow cemeteries such
those found on Bursdon Moor in Hartland and
Berry Down near Berrynarbor are believed to
have been indicators of power and territory.
Rather than directly sited on hill-tops, barrows
are commonly sited on prominent hill-side
positions in open ground where they could be
seen from furthest away.
If you see the word ’tumuli’ on a map, or see an
unusually round or pronounced hump toward
the summit of a hill, there’s a good chance it
could be a barrow burial mound.
Looking for Ages
© 2011 North Devon Coast Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty
www.explorethecoast.org
Bursdon Moor has several groups of tumuli
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Iron Age (aprox 2,600 - 2,000
years ago)
War, trade and culture
The Iron Age showed a continued development
in technology, agriculture, hill-slope settlements
and trading. A culture of maritime trading with
the UK from Scandinavian and Phoenician seafarers from the Mediterranean provided the
wealthy with access to foreign goods.
The most probable source of a stone axe
discovered at Clovelly Dykes is identified as
Balstone Down near Callington in Cornwall,
whilst a decorative blue glass bead, also found
at Clovelly Dykes, probably came from Europe.
At Newberry beach in Combe Martin, a worn set
of steps cut into the side of a rocky crevice are
still known locally as the Phoenician steps.
In North Devon, the large, impressive hillforts at
Embury Beacon, Clovelly Dykes and
Hillsborough mirrored a trend in defensive site
building seen across the UK. Current thinking is
that Hillforts were used by tribal chieftans for a
variety of purposes; as a deterrent to attack
from local tribes and the sea, as a sign of
wealth, for ceremonial purposes and as social
and trading hubs, rather than neccessarily used
as a domestic settlement. Recent
archaeological surveying by the North Devon
Coast AONB at Hillsborough near Ilfracombe
supports this idea, indicating no permanent
occupation inside the fortified banks.
Now weathered by over 2,000 years of SouthWest weather, trampling and vegetation, a visit
to any of these earthworks really brings home
the sophistication, determination and resources
of these ancient, tribal people. Their defensive
structures indicate construction and earth
movement on a scale that would be considered
sizable even by modern standards. Imagine the
banks and ditches at their true height and
depth, with spiked wooden fortifications,
created by a sophisticated culture - able to
mobilise thousands of people for huge
projects.
Looking for Ages
© 2011 North Devon Coast Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty
www.explorethecoast.org
Clovelly Dykes hillfort
Hillsboroughs defensive embankments are clearly visible
Plan of Embury promontory hillfort near Welcombe
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Top: One of 3 standing stones near
Damage Barton, Lee
Bottom Left: Stones are now often used by
sheep as rubbing posts
Bottom Right: Over the years some stones
have found their way into hedgebanks
Sacred places
Although we know little about the sacred and ceremonial practices of these ancient people,
enigmatic clusters and individual standing stones such as those found near Morthoe and in Hartland
conjure images of a human belief-system where the forces of nature were indistinguishable from
the spiritual world. While suggestive folk-law, old maps and field-names remain, sadly some stones
now appear lost in the passage of time.
Keep your eyes open while you’re out and about as the ancient stones were often recycled into
field boundaries in more recent times. That roughly shaped bit of old stone you spot out the corner
of your eye might actually be part of an ancient church-of-the-open-sky. Areas around Lee, between
Ilfracombe and Mortehoe, and on the Hartland Peninsula are key locations for the AONBs standing
stones.
Turn on the Standing stones, Holy Wells and Churches layer of the History theme on the Explore
the Coast interactive map to discover North Devon Coast AONBs little-known megaliths.
Please note, not all standing stones have public access, so please view proximity to Public Rights
of Way by turning on the Public Rights of Way layer on the interactive map, or by consulting an
ordinance survey map.
Looking for Ages
© 2011 North Devon Coast Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty
www.explorethecoast.org
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Stone Age (roughly 10,000 - 4000
years ago)
Though little remains, our human ancestors may
have lived in North Devon even before the last Ice
Age. More recently, after the huge ice sheets finally
began to retreat around 18,000 years ago, StoneAge hunter-gatherers slowly moved northward again
— first returning to the UK around 10,000 years ago.
As the climate warmed after the Ice Age, the sea
level gradually rose, but was still far lower than today.
Replacing the ice and permafrost, a mix of grassy
plains and woodland stretched out into what is now
the Bristol Channel and across the modern AONB
coast.
Today, at Westward Ho!, an ancient submerged
forest is often exposed beneath the golden sands at
low tide. Site exploration also revealed a mound of
stone-age kitchen waste (also known as a midden).
The site suggests an early date for human
settlement to the area as well as revealing our
prehistoric counterparts had a tastes for oysters,
mussels, and deer, as well as acorns and hazelnuts.
North Devon was clearly an important source of food
and raw materials for prehistoric people over
thousands of years, and many of the species seen
(and eaten) back then can still be found growing here
today.
Bursdon Moor - a fragment of an ancient habitat
Stone Tools
Many stone tools have been found in the North
Devon AONB — originating several thousands years
ago during the Stone and Bronze-ages. Sites of
such finds include the Hartland Peninsula, Baggy
Point, Georgeham, Braunton, Saunton Down,
Abbotsham and Clovelly. Barbed arrowheads,
scrapers, axe heads, strike-a-lights and tiny blades
for multi-bladed tools would have been essential
everyday tools used for hunting, preparing food,
animal skins, cutting wood and building shelters.
As footpaths, tracks and banks are continually
eroded by weather and trampling feet —don’t forget
to look down as you never know what you might find
amongst the stones!
Submerged forest at Westward Ho! tells of a time
of lower sea-level
Looking for Ages
© 2011 North Devon Coast Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty
www.explorethecoast.org
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