The Folly platform cairn

Overview

Heritage Category: Scheduled Monument

List Entry Number: 1008066

Date first listed: 04-Feb-1994

Location

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

National Park: PEAK DISTRICT

National Grid Reference: SK 16819 82891

Reasons for Designation

Platform cairns are funerary monuments covering single or multiple burials and dating to the Early Bronze Age (c.2000-1600BC). They were constructed as low flat-topped mounds of stone rubble up to 40m in external diameter. Some examples have other features, including peripheral banks and internal mounds constructed on the platform. A kerb of edge-set stones sometimes bounds the edges of the platform, bank or mound, or all three. Platform cairns occur as isolated monuments, in small groups or in cairn cemeteries. In the latter instances they are normally found alongside cairns of other types. Although no precise figure is available, current evidence indicates that there are under 250 known examples of this class of monument nationally. As a rare monument type, exhibiting considerable variation in form, surviving examples are considered worthy of preservation. The Folly platform cairn is a large and well-preserved example and lies outside the main distribution area. It is an unusual form of barrow for the Peak District and is believed to be intact.

Details

The monument known as The Folly or Folly Ring is a type of platform cairn including a sub-circular, flat-topped mound with a diameter of 25.5m by 21.5m. It is c.1m high and steep sided, and has a hilltop location which overlooks the Hope Valley in the northern gritstone moorlands of Derbyshire. No recorded excavation of the monument has been carried out, but Evans, writing in 1912, records the discovery of a polished stone axe though it is not known precisely in what context it was found. Platform cairns generally date to the Early Bronze Age but the axe may date The Folly somewhat earlier, to the Neolithic period. The post and wire fencing that crosses the monument is excluded from the scheduling although the ground underneath is included.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 4 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: 23268

Legacy System: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Barnatt, J, The Peak District Barrow Survey (1989), (1989)
Barnatt, J, The Peak District Barrow Survey (1989), (1989)
Other
Evans, ?, (1912)

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 Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.