Yelland Stone Rows
Yelland Stone Rows is a prehistoric line of small standing stones on the tidal mudflats of the River Taw estuary in Devon, England. The site lies within the Isley Marsh nature reserve, owned by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). It consists of two parallel rows of sandstone stones, at least 18 pieces in total, each at least 30 cm high and 22 cm wide, with the rows up to 2.5 meters apart and about 56 meters long when complete.
In 1932, the tallest stone was about 40 cm high above the mud. Archaeologist E. H. Rogers excavated the site in the 1930s, uncovering nine pairs of stones and flint tools that pointed to human activity from the Mesolithic to the Early Bronze Age. By the late 1990s all the stones had disappeared from view as they were buried under silt.
The site is a scheduled monument, designated in 1970 (official name Yelland Stone Rows; reference 33321). Possible reasons for the stones’ disappearance include reduced currents after the nearby power station closed, plus other silting from shipping, railway and flood-bank changes, and upstream runoff.
In 2018 Historic England funded a new archaeological study to locate the buried stones. A team led by Dr. Martin Bates used geophysical surveys and planned work to minimize disturbance to the Isley Marsh birds.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 20:22 (CET).