Round cairn on Thornley Hall Fell, 430m east of Meg Hall

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1019447
Date first listed:: 14-Mar-2000

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1019447
Date first listed:: 14-Mar-2000

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Lancashire
District:: Ribble Valley (District Authority)
Parish:: Thornley-with-Wheatley
National Grid Reference:: SD 64527 40470

Reasons for Designation

Round cairns are prehistoric funerary monuments dating to the Bronze Age (c.2000-700 BC). They were constructed as stone mounds covering single or multiple burials. These burials may be placed within the mound in stone-lined compartments called cists. In some cases the cairn was surrounded by a ditch. Often occupying prominent locations, cairns are a major visual element in the modern landscape. They are a relatively common feature of the uplands and are the stone equivalent of the earthen round barrows of the lowlands. Their considerable variation in form and longevity as a monument type provide important information on the diversity of beliefs and social organisation amongst early prehistoric communities. They are particularly representative of their period and a substantial proportion of surviving examples are considered worthy of protection.

Despite some disturbance to the northern part of the monument, the round cairn on Thornley Hall Fell, 430m east of Meg Hall survives reasonably well and will contain undisturbed archaeological deposits within the mound and upon the old landsurface beneath.

Details

The monument includes a partly mutilated prehistoric round cairn located on the summit of a local high point on Thornley Hall Fell, 430m east of Meg Hall. It consists of a circular mound of earth and stones 36m in diameter and up to 0.5m high. The northern part of the cairn has been disturbed and a small pile of loose stones have been dumped upon the cairn's summit.

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.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 32845
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Other
SMR No. 165, Lancs SMR, Thornley Hall Fell, (1985)
SMR No. 1839, Lancs SMR, Thornley Hall Fell, (1985)

Legal

This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.