Reasons for Designation
Standing stones are prehistoric ritual or ceremonial monuments with dates ranging from the Late Neolithic to the end of the Bronze Age for the few excavated examples. They comprise single or paired upright orthostatic slabs, ranging from under lm to over 6m high where still erect. They are often conspicuously sited and close to other contemporary monument classes. They can be accompanied by various features: many occur in or on the edge of round barrows, and where excavated, associated subsurface features have included stone cists, stone settings, and various pits and hollows filled in with earth containing human bone, cremations, charcoal, flints, pots and pot sherds. Similar deposits have been found in excavated sockets for standing stones, which range considerably in depth. Several standing stones also bear cup and ring marks. Standing stones may have functioned as markers for routeways, territories, graves, or meeting points, but their accompanying features show they also bore a ritual function and that they form one of several ritual monument classes of their period that often contain a deposit of cremation and domestic debris as an integral component. No national survey of standing stones has been undertaken, and estimates range from 50 to 250 extant examples, widely distributed throughout England but with concentrations in Cornwall, the North Yorkshire Moors, Cumbria, Derbyshire and the Cotswolds. Standing stones are important as nationally rare monuments, with a high longevity and demonstrating the diversity of ritual practices in the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age. Despite partial early excavation and the apparent loss of its pair, the standing stone 75m south of Tremayne will retain archaeological and environmental evidence relating to its erection, longevity, ritual, funerary and territorial significance and function, social organisation and overall landscape context.
Details
The monument includes a standing stone situated on the northern side of a small valley above two unnamed streams leading to the Drift reservoir. The standing stone survives as an earth-fast upright monolith measuring up to 1.9m high and 1m square at the base and tapering upwards. First recorded by Borlase in 1752, it was described as one of two stones and a partial excavation between the two revealed a pit with black greasy earth which was close to the western stone. Of the second stone there is no longer any trace, and it had disappeared before Henderson described the site in the 1920's.
Sources: HER:-
PastScape Monument No:-424199
