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.
Over 30 deserted medieval settlements retaining visible remains of medieval
character are recorded on Bodmin Moor. Some of these are single abandoned
farms but the majority are small hamlets containing two to six farmhouses.
Documentary evidence indicates that most such settlements on the Moor were
established between the 11th and mid-14th centuries AD. Although many of these
settlements were deserted by the close of the medieval period, some were
abandoned at a later period.
Deserted medieval settlements are often visible as close groupings of small
buildings, each containing a long house, its ancillary buildings and one or
more adjacent small plots which served as kitchen gardens or stock pens. These
components are arranged within the settlement around internal yards and
trackways which led from the settlement to its associated fields, pasture and
water supply.
Long houses were the dominant type of farmhouse in upland settlements of
south west England between the 10th and 16th centuries. Rectangular in plan,
usually with rubble or boulder outer walls and their long axis orientated
downslope, the interiors of long houses were divided into two separate
functional areas, an upslope domestic room and a downslope stock byre, known
in south west England as a shippon. The proportions occupied by the domestic
room and the shippon vary considerably but the division between the two was
usually provided by a cross passage of timber screens or rubble walling
running transversely across the long house, linking opposed openings in the
long side walls.
Ancillary buildings are generally separated slightly from the farmhouses
themselves, or else appear as outshuts attached to the longhouse. These
additional structures served as barns, fuel or equipment stores and
occasionally contained ovens and corn-drying kilns.
While many settlements in Cornwall are known from documentary sources to be of
medieval origin, well-preserved deserted sites are rare. Consequently those on
Bodmin Moor provide the main surviving source of evidence for the distinctive
form and layout of Cornish medieval settlements. The pattern of dispersed
hamlets which characterised this period of settlement remains a strong
influence on the existing settlement pattern in Cornwall, both on and off the
Moor.
Elaborate complexes of fields and field boundaries are a major feature of the
Moor landscape. Irregular aggregate field systems are one method of field
layout known to have been employed in south west England during the Bronze Age
(c.2000-700 BC). Irregular aggregate field systems comprise a collection of
field plots, generally lacking in conformity of orientation and arrangement,
containing fields with sinuous outlines and varying shapes and sizes bounded
by stone or rubble walls or banks, ditches or fences.
Irregular aggregate field systems often incorporate or are situated near stone
hut circles, the dwelling places of prehistoric farmers on the Moor, mostly
also dating from the Bronze Age. 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 or be enclosed by a bank
of earth and stone. Prehistoric field systems and hut circles are important
elements of the existing landscape and provide important evidence on the
organisation of farming practices and settlement during the prehistoric
period.
The relatively unintensive post-medieval land use of upland areas which has
allowed the preservation of much surviving prehistoric and medieval settlement
evidence also permits the survival of medieval field systems which often abut
or impinge on the earlier, prehistoric, remains. Regular enclosed field
systems are one such field system type known to have been employed during the
later medieval period (AD 1066-1550). They comprise a methodically-arranged
collection of field plots in which individual holdings were systematically
distributed through different parts of the field system's overall area. This
was achieved by several known methods of field layout depending on whether the
field system was superimposed on an earlier, sometimes unenclosed, field
system or whether it was newly established on the area covered, and whether or
not the field system comprised a cohesive or dispersed collection of plots.
The resulting regular enclosed field systems often include collections of
elongated strip-form plots, each plot representing one unit of an individual's
holding. Medieval field systems also form an important element of the existing
landscape, providing information on the organisation of medieval farming and
settlement, its expansion onto the uplands and providing evidence for the
successive changes in land use that have affected the Moor.
This deserted medieval settlement on Tresibbet Farm has survived well, showing
clearly its internal layout, the relationship between the settlement and its
field system, and the form and construction of its constituent buildings. This
is one of the largest deserted medieval settlements on the Moor and the
presence of distinct groupings of long houses within its linear pattern is
unusual. The incorporation of the prehistoric settlement and field system into
the medieval layout shows both the changing nature of settlement and farming
activity across these periods and the influence that prehistoric activity can
retain on those of later periods. The contraction of the medieval settlement's
occupation and its final abandonment in the early post-medieval period
typifies the later development of these upland settlements but it is rare to
find such intact settlement and field system evidence from the prehistoric to
the post-medieval periods in such close physical association. This provides a
rare opportunity to observe a near-continuous sequence of land-use episodes
from the Bronze Age to the present day. Of the monument's early occupation,
the hut circle settlement has also survived well; its manner of levelling hut
circles by terracing is found elsewhere in this vicinity but is generally an
unusual feature.
The proximity of the monument to other prehistoric and medieval settlements
and field systems on this valley side sets this monument in its wider context
of land-use at each phase in its development.
Details
The monument includes a deserted medieval settlement and its regular enclosed
field system situated on the eastern slope of the upper River Fowey valley on
southern Bodmin Moor. Incorporated within the medieval field system is a
prehistoric settlement of four large stone hut circles with traces of its
irregular field system. Two farmhouses of the medieval settlement were later
modified and one was occupied into the early post-medieval period before its
abandonment.
The deserted buildings in the medieval settlement are arranged in a linear
pattern, extending NNW-SSE over 270m of the valley's eastern mid-slope at
about the 250m contour level. A hollowed routeway, up to 3m wide and 1m deep,
runs the length of the settlement, linking most of its buildings and extending
beyond the settlement at each end. At intervals, this routeway, called a
hollow way, branches at right-angles, upslope and downslope, to provide access
to the adjacent fields. The settlement contains at least seven farmhouses,
each of a distinctive form called a longhouse and each adjacent to the
hollow way. A group of three longhouses and their ancillary buildings is
located at each end of the settlement, with a single long house, 50m from each
group, at the centre of the settlement.
The long houses survive with walling of coursed rubble and edge-set facing
slabs, up to 1.2m wide and 1.2m high, defining an elongated rectangular outer
wall whose long axis is orientated directly downslope, generally ENE-WSW on
this slope. The long houses range in overall internal size from 10m by 4.7m to
16.5m by 4.2m. Most of the long houses retain visible evidence for transverse
subdivision by slighter rubble walling or by large edge-set slabs. These
subdivisions mark a downslope shippon, or stock-byre, up to 4m long, from the
upslope domestic quarters. Opposed entrance gaps, up to 1.5m wide, usually
occur in the long outer walls at the junction of the domestic quarters with
the shippon. The domestic quarters are also visibly subdivided in four
long houses, each possessing a small room, up to 2.7m long, at its upslope
end.
This is considered to have formed a bedroom or a dry storage area,
consistently raised above the floor level of the remainder of the domestic
quarters. Other subdivisions within the domestic quarters are usually of
edge-set slabs, forming screens between rooms and between the domestic
quarters and the cross-passage.
All except the central long house of the settlement have adjoining or adjacent
ancillary buildings, usually one or two but up to three with each long house,
totalling ten ancillary buildings visible in the settlement as a whole. The
ancillary buildings are also rectangular, with long axes parallel or at
right-angles to the long house. They are built in a similar manner to the
long houses, with coursed rubble and slab walling up to 1m wide and 1.2m high,
and they range in size from 3m by 1.5m to 6.5m by 3.5m internally. Two
ancillary buildings with the SSE group of long houses are transversely
subdivided by edge-set slabs and one building with the NNW group has
foundations of a triangular partitioned area, 2m long and up to 1m wide,
against its northern wall. The other ancillary buildings lack visible
subdivision.
In addition to these surviving physical remains, an historical record of AD
1311 referring to the settlement of `Tresebed' is considered to relate to this
deserted settlement.
A broadly contemporary regular enclosed field system extends both upslope,
ENE, and downslope, WSW, from the settlement's linear axis. The field system
is defined by earth-and-rubble banks, up to 1.5m wide and 0.7m high, some of
which are incorporated into the modern pattern of field boundaries, with
refurbished rubble-facing and additional stone-walling. Where banks run along
the contour, a substantial deposit of ploughsoil and hillwash, called a
lynchet, has accumulated against their uphill sides.
The field system survives over 7ha, within which its major field banks run
directly across the contour, 25m to 80m apart, generally following
near-straight courses from the settlement's hollow way to the foot of the
slope, to a maximum 230m to the WSW, and up to near the crest of the slope, to
a maximum 120m to the ENE. The bank marking the south east surviving extent of
the field system along the slope is accompanied along its south east side by a
ditch, up to 2m wide and 0.6m deep. Lynchetted cross-banks within the field
system subdivide the resulting strips at intervals into individual plots,
ranging from 0.1ha to 0.55ha each. Finer subdivision of plots adjacent to the
settlement's hollow way produces several small yards and garden plots of
0.02ha to 0.1ha.
The hollow way forming the axis for both the settlement and field system ends
to the south east as a visible feature where it meets the ditched bank
delimiting the field system's surviving extent. To the north west, it survives
100m beyond the surviving limit of the settlement and field system, its
hollowed course lined by modern refurbished hedgebanks, 3m-4m apart. The field
system contains remains of two further medieval buildings. One survives as a
rubble-walled rectangular stance, measuring 5m by 4m internally, located in a
northern plot, 60m west of the hollow way. The other is a slight,
rubble-walled rectangular structure, measuring 3m by 2.5m internally,
considered to be a medieval tin-miners' store, built within the southern end
of a prehistoric hut circle's interior, 100m south west of the settlement's
central long house.
The medieval field system contains elements near the centre of its area which
derive from its incorporation of an earlier, prehistoric, irregular aggregate
field system on this hillside. The walls of the prehistoric field system also
survive as banks of earth and heaped rubble, up to 1.5m wide and 0.7m high.
They include many sinuous irregularities in their courses, contrasting with
the generally straighter medieval boundaries, though some of the latter
incorporate lengths of prehistoric wall, with the irregularities, near the
settlement's central long house. The prehistoric field system survives over
2ha of the slope and includes at least four plots, of 0.09ha to 0.5ha each.
The smallest plot extends west from the central medieval long house and two
further adjoining plots extend WSW, forming a row of increasing plot size and
width down the slope. The fourth plot extends east from the area of the
medieval settlement's NNW group of long houses but only its distinctively
sinuous eastern wall survives.
This prehistoric field system incorporates a settlement of four stone hut
circles, three spaced 17m-25m apart in the central plot of the row of three
plots, the fourth situated 45m to their south at the boundary of the central
and lower plots. The hut circles are each levelled out from the slope by a
rubble terrace supporting their wall and interior. They survive with walls of
heaped and coursed rubble, up to 2m wide and 1m high, rising to 1.5m above
ground level including the height of the supporting terrace. Their walls,
containing frequent edge-set inner and outer facing slabs, define levelled
circular internal areas, ranging from 4m to 9.5m in diameter. The southern hut
circle, which contains the slight rubble-walled medieval structure, is
truncated along its ENE side by a straight, lynchetted cross-bank of the
medieval field system. A fifth hut circle within the monument is situated 9m
south of the uphill end of ditched boundary forming the south eastern limit of
the medieval field system. This is the northern of five hut circles dispersed
along the crest of the hillslope. It survives with a heaped rubble wall, up to
1m wide and 0.4m high, defining an internal area 4.75m in diameter, levelled
into the slope. Its wall has inner and outer facing slabs and an entrance gap,
0.5m wide, facing south west, flanked by edge-set slabs, up to 0.5m high,
across the wall-line. The next hut circle in this dispersed group is located
beyond the monument, 30m to the SSE.
Partial occupation of the medieval settlement after most of its buildings had
been abandoned resulted in modification to two of its long houses. The central
long house was re-built as a slighter rectangular structure whose coursed
rubble walls, up to 0.7m wide and 0.7m high, overlie those of the long house
except along the northern side where they run 1m to the south. Occupation of
the settlement's NNW long house continued into the post-medieval period. It
was extended and refurbished to give total internal dimensions of 16.5m by
4.2m and walling surviving up to 1m wide and 1.3m high. Its interior was
converted entirely to domestic use; the east wall of the western, downslope,
room contains an intact bread oven, 1m in diameter with a stone-framed
entrance 0.4m square.
Beyond the monument, other deserted medieval and prehistoric settlements with
field systems are located 1km to the south east and 650m to the NNW along the
same side of the valley.
All modern post-and-wire fences, gates and gate fittings; the bed of the
water-course crossing the slope near the centre of the settlement and its
buried pipe are excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath
these features, including hedgebanks and stone walls, is included.
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.
