Stone hut circle with adjacent prehistoric field walls and incorporated post-medieval peat mound 280m NNE of Tresibbet Farm

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1007773
Date first listed:: 18-Apr-1994

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1007773
Date first listed:: 18-Apr-1994

Location

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

District:: Cornwall (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Altarnun
National Grid Reference:: SX 20390 75603

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.

Stone hut circles were the dwelling places of prehistoric farmers on the Moor, mostly dating from the Bronze Age (c.2000-700 BC). The stone-based round houses survive as low walls or banks enclosing a circular floor area; the remains of a turf or thatch roof are not preserved as visible features. The huts may occur singly or in small or large groups and may occur in the open, they may be enclosed by a bank of earth and stone or they may be incorporated into one of several types of contemporary field system. Although they are common on the Moor, their longevity of use and their relationship with other monument types provides important information on the diversity of social organisation and farming practices among prehistoric communities. The relatively unintensive post-medieval land use which has permitted the survival of prehistoric monuments on the Moor also preserves features from later activities. Among these are remains derived from peat-cutting, including various hollowed, trenched and depressed areas from which the peat was cut, and several types of feature resulting from the storage of cut peat, including mounds of various forms and ditched storage platforms. This monument on Tresibbet Farm has survived well. The hut circle shows clearly its method of construction, while the distinctive manner of levelling it by terracing out from the slope is a method known elsewhere in the vicinity but is generally unusual. The adjacent prehistoric walling provides evidence for the hut circle's wider context within a field system. The thick peat and soil deposits built up against this walling will preserve environmental evidence and buried land surfaces contemporary with and subsequent to the construction and use of the wall and hut circle. The peat storage mound does not disturb the prehistoric remains and is an unusual re-use of a hut circle which underlines the changing nature of land use in this upland terrain since the prehistoric period.

Details

The monument includes a prehistoric hut circle with adjacent, broadly contemporary, field walling situated on the south-west edge of Smith's Moor, at the eastern crest of the upper River Fowey valley on southern Bodmin Moor. The hut circle was re-used to retain a circular mound of peat during the post-medieval period. This hut circle is located at the centre of a settlement of five stone hut circles dispersed along the west and south-west edges of Smith's Moor. The hut circle survives with a wall of heaped rubble, at least 1.5m wide and 0.4m high, defining a circular internal area measuring 9m in diameter. The hut circle wall has six large, spaced, inner facing slabs, up to 1m long and 0.3m high, and follows the perimeter of a stance levelled partly by terracing out from the slope. Much of the hut circle and part of its wall are covered by an ovoid mound of peat, deriving from the much later, post-medieval, re-use of the hut circle to retain a storage heap of peat cut from the thick deposits in the vicinity. The mound measures 13m WSW-ENE by up to 9m wide and is 0.75m high, and overlies the hut circle interior from the inner edge of its wall at the WSW, extending over and slightly beyond the hut circle's ENE walling. The hut circle is linked to the northern arc of a broadly contemporary field plot by a prehistoric wall which emerges from the eastern edge of the peat mound and extends east for 28m to join the north-west sector of the field plot. The curved wall of field plot is visible for 47m to the points at each end where its continuation is masked by hillwash and thick peat. The walling of the field plot and that linking it to the hut circle each survives as a heaped rubble wall, up to 1.5m wide and 0.4m high, with occasional edge-set and laid slabs, up to 0.5m high, against its sides. A marked build up of soil and peat, called a lynchet, has accumulated up to 0.3m high against the uphill sides of the walls. Several similar lengths of prehistoric walling occur on this slope beyond this monument, deriving from a prehistoric field system which incorporated a number of hut circles and which is now only intermittently visible through the thick peat deposits that subsequently blanketed this hillslope. Further such lengths of prehistoric wall are visible from 45m north of the monument and from 155m to the south, where they incorporate two more stone hut circles of this settlement.

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:: 15270
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Other
consulted 1993, Carter, A./Fletcher, M.J./RCHME, 1:2500 AP plot and field trace for SX 2075,
consulted 1993, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1009,
consulted 1993, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1046,

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.