Reasons for Designation
Bodmin Moor, the largest of the Cornish granite uplands, has long been
recognised to have exceptional preservation of archaeological remains. The
Moor has been the subject of detailed archaeological survey and is one of the
best recorded upland landscapes in England. The extensive relict landscapes of
prehistoric, medieval and post-medieval date provide direct evidence for human
exploitation of the Moor from the earliest prehistoric period onwards. The
well-preserved and often visible relationship between settlement sites, field
systems, ceremonial and funerary monuments as well as later industrial remains
provides significant insights into successive changes in the pattern of land
use through time. Round cairns are funerary monuments covering single or
multiple burials and dating to the Bronze Age (c.2000-700 BC). They were
constructed as mounds of earth and stone rubble up to 40m in external diameter
but usually considerably smaller; a kerb of edge-set stones sometimes bounds
the edges of the mound. Burials were placed in small pits, or on occasion
within a box-like structure of stone slabs called a cist, let into the old
ground surface or dug into the body of the cairn. Round cairns can occur as
isolated monuments, in small groups or in larger cemeteries. Their
considerable variation in form and longevity as a monument type provides
important information on the diversity of beliefs, burial practices and social
organisation in the Bronze Age. They are particularly representative of their
period and a substantial proportion of surviving examples are considered
worthy of preservation.
This round cairn with inner and outer kerbs and central cist has survived
substantially intact despite the limited and well-defined stone-robbing. That
disturbance has also revealed parts of the inner kerb and cist which, with its
outer kerb, make this an unusually complex cairn. Its proximity to the
Neolithic hilltop enclosure and to other broadly contemporary funerary, ritual
and settlement sites demonstrates well the diversity of burial practices
during the Bronze Age and their integration with other forms of land use.
Details
The monument includes a prehistoric round cairn with a central cist situated
in a natural mid-slope hollow on the western side of the Showery Tor-Roughtor
ridge on north-west Bodmin Moor.
The cairn is visible as a turf-covered circular mound of heaped rubble, 6.5m
in diameter and up to 0.6m high. The mound's perimeter is marked by spaced
edge-set and fallen slabs from a low outer kerb, projecting up to 0.1m above
the turf. Relatively recent stone-robbing from the mound has created a central
hollow, up to 2.5m in diameter and 0.5m deep. The hollow exposes parts of an
inner kerb, 2.5m in diameter, visible as a contiguous row of four edge-set
slabs along the northern side, up to 0.3m high and leaning outwards, with
smaller slabs projecting through the turf on the hollow's western and southern
edges. At the centre of the hollow, an edge-set slab, measuring 1.5m east-west
by 0.2m wide and 0.4m high, is considered to form one side of a slab-built
box-like burial structure called a cist.
This cairn is situated close to extensive broadly contemporary funerary,
ritual and settlement sites on the Roughtor-Showery Tor ridge, including field
systems with incorporated cairns, hut circles and enclosures 45m to the north-
west, and a ritual avenue and tor cairn on Showery Tor 220m to the ESE. An
earlier, Neolithic, hilltop enclosure is located 540m south-east of this
monument on the summit of Roughtor.
MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features,
considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.
