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 insight into successive changes in the pattern of land use through time. Standing stones are ceremonial monuments dating from the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age (c.2400-700 BC). They comprise single or paired upright slabs, ranging in height from under 1m to over 6m, where still erect. Standing stones are often conspicuously sited and sometimes are located in or on the edge of round barrows or cairns. Excavations have demonstrated sub-surface features adjacent to standing stones, including stone funerary cists, spreads of small pebbles and various pits and hollows filled in some cases with human bone, cremations, charcoal and domestic artefacts. Similar deposits have been found in excavated sockets for standing stones, which vary considerably in depth. Standing stones may have functioned as markers for routeways, territorial boundaries, graves and meeting points, but their adjacent features show that they also bore a ritual function, forming one of the several known ritual monument classes of their period. Estimates suggest that about 250 standing stones are known nationally, of which the 16 examples surviving on Bodmin Moor form an important sub-group. They are a long-lived class of monument, highly representative of their period. The standing stone 415m south west of Moorgate called 'Long Stone' survives well and archaeological and environmental evidence relating to its construction, function, date, territorial, ritual and social significance as well as its overall landscape context will be preserved.
Details
The monument includes a standing stone situated on a low ridge overlooking a tributary to the River Camel. The standing stone survives as an upright earthfast monolith measuring up to 2m high, 1m wide and 0.6m thick at the base and tapering upwards to a rounded point.
Further archaeological remains survive in the vicinity of the monument and are the subject of separate schedulings.
Sources: HER:-
PastScape Monument No:-434435
