Western White Barrow

Also known as:
Petre's Cross and Western Whitaburrow
Nearest town:
Buckfastleigh (8km ENE)
OS reference:
SX653654
OS sheet:
202
Latitude:
50° 28' 20.27 N
Longitude:
3° 53' 54.36 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Western White Barrow (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

Highlighting the remains of the Peat Cutters’ hut construction from and within the cairn.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN May 31, 2024
Image of Western White Barrow (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

The remains of Petre’s Cross are foreground, the Eastern White Barrow upon the skyline.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN May 31, 2024
Image of Western White Barrow (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

Although much less upstanding than its superlative eastern neighbour – at least nowadays – this is, nonetheless, a substantial cairn. The remains of Petre’s Cross can be seen to the left.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN May 31, 2024
Image of Western White Barrow (Cairn(s)) by Billy Fear

The barrow in the mist with the broken Petre’s Cross. Looking E.
31/10/09

Image credit: Billy Fear
Billy Fear
Billy Fear Jan 11, 2010
Image of Western White Barrow (Cairn(s)) by Lubin

Western White Barrow lies aproximately 1 kilometer to the west of Eastern White Barrow. This cairn has been modified by walkers and had a cross , some of which is left and can be seem centre right of the photo, erected on it in the 1500’s.

Image credit: Peter Castle. ©
Lubin
Lubin May 6, 2007

Articles

Western White Barrow

Billy Fear
Billy Fear Jan 11, 2010

I have been up there now 4 times and everytime I was in the midst of fog or low clouds with no visibility.
This cairn has been the accomodation of peat cutters around 1847 who supposedly took down Petre’s Cross which stood there for nearly 300 years. The armless cross has been re-errected upside down.

Miscellaneous

Western White Barrow
Cairn(s)
GLADMAN
GLADMAN May 31, 2024

Set more-or-less due west of the magnificent Eastern White Barrow, the assumption is most folks would look to combine a visit to both, right? Note, however, that the monuments stand approx three quarters of a mile apart, a not insignificant distance upon upland Dartmoor.

Having been used as the building source – not to mention foundation – of a drystone shelter for peat cutters during the 1800’s, the interior of the monument has not faired well. Neither, for that matter, has the former Petre’s Cross, the remains of which can still be seen.

Historic England has this to say:

“This monument includes a round cairn, wayside cross and shelter situated on the summit of a ridge known as Quickbeam Hill. The round cairn survives as a circular stony mound measuring up to 21m in diameter and 1.7m high. The wayside cross is positioned on the cairn, but is inverted. It measures 1.3m high and is of rectangular section with both arms broken off. It was one of four set up by Sir William Petre, who had purchased Brent Manor after the Dissolution of the Monasteries from Buckfast Abbey in 1557 and was used to mark the bounds of the Forest of Dartmoor in 1557 and 1786. The round cairn has been disturbed by the construction of a two roomed shelter within the structure of the cairn itself measuring 11.5m long by 4.7m wide and having a fireplace and chimney. This was constructed in about 1847 by workers at the Red Lake peat ties, in connection with the Naptha Works at Shipley, who re-used the cross as a chimney lintel at the same time. Following the partial destruction of the building the cross was re-erected.”

Miscellaneous

Western White Barrow
Cairn(s)
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Jan 15, 2010

At Western Whitaburrow, the cairn on which Petre’s Cross formerly stood, the men who used to work at the turf cutting, built themselves a little house, using stone from the cairn for the purpose, such being necessary as there is no village, or suitable habitations, nearer than Brent, which is between five and six miles distant. These men were the destroyers of the old cross which was set up on the cairn, the shaft being all that is now left of it. The workman that I have referred to informed me that the labourers used to make incursions into Huntingdon Warren, which is in full view across the valley from Western Whitaburrow, and trap the rabbits, he having sometimes seen, he added with a smile of satisfaction, as many as a dozen being boiled at one time in the crock at the house on the cairn.

From ‘Amid Devonia’s Alps’ by William Crossing (1888).

Sites within 20km of Western White Barrow

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