Edwardian Farm clip plus images added to illustrate what Alex Langlands describes. Dartmoor is an area of moorland in south Devon, England. It boasts an estimated 5,000 hut circles still surviving, despite the fact that many have been raided over the centuries by the builders of the traditional dry stone walls. These are the remnants of Bronze Age houses. The smallest are around 1.8 m (6 ft) in diameter, and the largest may be up to five times this size. Some have L-shaped porches to protect against wind and rain; some particularly good examples are to be found at Grimspound. It is believed that they would have had a conical roof, supported by timbers and covered in turf or thatch. Grimspound is a late Bronze Age settlement, situated on Dartmoor in Devon, England. It consists of a set of 24 hut circles surrounded by a low stone wall. It was first settled about 1300 BC. The 24 hut circles are surrounded by a massive granite perimeter wall, which may have stood at 1.7 metres in places. The roundhouses, with an average diameter of 3.4 metres, were each built of a double ring of granite slabs with a rubble infill - a technique still used in dry-stone walling. one, Hut 3, has a surviving porchway, with the two jamb stones still upright, although the lintel has fallen. The roundhouse is a type of house with a circular plan, originally built in western Europe, using walls made of stone or wooden posts joined by wattle-and-daub panels, and a conical thatched roof. Roundhouses ranged in size from less than 5m in diameter to over 15m. Roundhouses were the standard form of housing built in Britain from the Bronze Age throughout the Iron Age and well into the Sub Roman period. They used walls made either of stone or of wooden posts joined by wattle-and-daub panels and a conical thatched roof and ranged in size from less than 5m in diameter to over 15m. The Atlantic roundhouse, Broch and Wheelhouse styles were used in Scotland. The remains of many Bronze Age roundhouses can still be found scattered across open heathland, such as Dartmoor, as granite 'hut circles'. There are also numerous kistvaens, Neolithic stone box-like tombs. A kistvaen or cistvaen is a tomb or burial chamber formed from flat stone slabs in a box-like shape. If set completely underground, it may be covered by a tumulus. One of the most numerous kinds of kistvaen are the Dartmoor kistvaens. These often take the form of small rectangular pits about 3 ft. (0.9 m) long by 2 feet (0.6 m) wide. The kistvaens were usually covered with a mound of earth and surrounded by a circle of small stones. When a body was placed in the kistvaen, it was usually lain in a contracted position. Sometimes however the body was cremated with the ashes placed in a cinerary urn. The majority of the prehistoric remains on Dartmoor date back to the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. Indeed, Dartmoor contains the largest concentration of Bronze Age remains in the United Kingdom, which suggests that this was when a larger population moved onto the hills of Dartmoor. The large systems of Bronze Age fields, divided by reaves, cover an area of over 10,000 hectares (39 sq mi) of the lower moors. The climate at the time was warmer than today, and much of today's moorland was covered with trees. The prehistoric settlers began clearing the forest, and established the first farming communities. Fire was the main method of clearing land, creating pasture and swidden types of fire-fallow farmland. Areas less suited for farming tended to be burned for livestock grazing. Over the centuries these Neolithic practices greatly expanded the upland moors, and contributed to the acidification of the soil and the accumulation of peat and bogs. After a few thousand years the mild climate deteriorated leaving these areas uninhabited and consequently relatively undisturbed to the present day. Protected by National Park status, Dartmoor National Park covers 954 square kilometres (368 sq mi). The granite which forms the uplands dates from the Carboniferous Period of geological history. The moorland is capped with many exposed granite hilltops known as tors, providing habitats for Dartmoor wildlife. The highest point is High Willhays, 621 m (2,037 ft) above sea level. The entire area is rich in antiquities and archaeology. Playlist: Shelter - Mesolithic, Viking, Medieval - roundhouse, longhouse, Norse town, British domestic history https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-vRsHsClLJ5J3qQqM84fXln344BBkNvS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmoor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimspound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundhouse_(dwelling) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kistvaen http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/visiting/maps Recreating first house ("Coast"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMm-synejrM&feature;=youtu.be&t;=23m25s

• published: 20 Feb 2015
• views: 1912