Kerbed platform cairn on Wingletang Down, 85m south west of Crooked Rock

Overview

Heritage Category: Scheduled Monument

List Entry Number: 1009275

Date first listed: 07-Oct-1976

Date of most recent amendment: 04-Oct-1994

Location

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

National Grid Reference: SV 88550 07612

Summary

Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.

Reasons for Designation

The Isles of Scilly, the westernmost of the granite masses of south west England, contain a remarkable abundance and variety of archaeological remains from over 4000 years of human activity. The remote physical setting of the islands, over 40km beyond the mainland in the approaches to the English Channel, has lent a distinctive character to those remains, producing many unusual features important for our broader understanding of the social development of early communities. Throughout the human occupation there has been a gradual submergence of the islands' land area, providing a stimulus to change in the environment and its exploitation. This process has produced evidence for responses to such change against an independent time-scale, promoting integrated studies of archaeological, environmental and linguistic aspects of the islands' settlement. The islands' archaeological remains demonstrate clearly the gradually expanding size and range of contacts of their communities. By the post- medieval period (from AD 1540), the islands occupied a nationally strategic location, resulting in an important concentration of defensive works reflecting the development of fortification methods and technology from the mid 16th to the 20th centuries. An important and unusual range of post- medieval monuments also reflects the islands' position as a formidable hazard for the nation's shipping in the western approaches. The exceptional preservation of the archaeological remains on the islands has long been recognised, producing an unusually full and detailed body of documentation, including several recent surveys. Platform cairns are funerary monuments of Early Bronze Age date (c.2000-1600 BC). They were constructed as low flat-topped mounds of stone rubble, up to 40m in external diameter though usually considerably smaller, covering single or multiple burials. Some examples have other features, including peripheral banks and internal mounds constructed on the platform. A kerb of slabs or edge-set stones sometimes bounds the edge of the platform, and a peripheral bank or mound if present. Platform cairns can occur as isolated monuments, in small groups or in cairn cemeteries. In cemeteries they are normally found alongside cairns of other types. Platform cairns form a significant proportion of the 387 surviving cairns on the Isles of Scilly; this is unusual in comparison with the mainland. All surviving examples on the Isles of Scilly are considered worthy of protection.

This platform cairn on Wingletang Down has survived substantially intact despite some minor disturbance from antiquarian excavation. The incorporation of natural outcrops into the mound is a distinctive feature found in certain other cairns on the Isles of Scilly but unusual and rare nationally. The presence of this cairn in a dispersed group containing various other classes of cairn shows the diversity of funerary activity during the Bronze Age. The relationships between this cairn group, the nearby prehistoric field systems and the topography on St Agnes demonstrate well the nature of land use among prehistoric communities and the organisation of funerary and farming activities.

History

Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.

Details

The monument includes a prehistoric kerbed platform cairn incorporating two natural outcrops and situated on the eastern side of Wingletang Down on St Agnes in the Isles of Scilly. The platform cairn survives with a sub-circular mound of heaped rubble measuring 8m east-west by 7m north-south, rising 0.5m to a flattened upper surface forming the platform, measuring 5m east-west by 4m north-south. The outer edges of the platform are defined by a prominent kerb containing six spaced slabs; the largest three slabs, on the north east quarter, are up to 0.6m high, while the others rise only 0.1m above the turf level. In addition, the line of the kerb incorporates two small natural outcrops, up to 0.75m high, in its east and south west sectors. Within the northern half of the platform surface, a hollow resulting from an unrecorded antiquarian excavation measures 1m north east to south west by 0.8m north west to south east and 0.35m deep. This cairn forms part of a group containing at least 44 cairns of various types dispersed about the heathland and abundant granite outcrops of Wingletang Down, the broad southern peninsula of St Agnes. Prehistoric field systems border the northern edges of the Down, partly incorporating several cairns towards the north east edge of this cairn group. Another large and diverse cairn group occupies the southern part of Gugh, 450m north east of Wingletang Down.

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: 15336

Legacy System: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Russell, V, Isles of Scilly Survey, (1980)
Other
consulted 1993, Waters, A., AM 107 for Cornwall SMR entry PRN 7016.15, (1988)
consulted 1993, Waters, A., AM 107s for Cornwall SMR entries PRN 7010; 7013; 7019, (1988)
consulted 1993, Waters, A., AM 107s for Cornwall SMR entries PRN 7011; 7015; 7016; 7018, (1988)
consulted 1993, Waters, A., AM 107s for Cornwall SMR entries PRN 7020; 7056; 7057; 7059, (1988)
Morley, B. & Rees, S., AM7 scheduling documentation for CO 1014, 1975, 'Cairn l'; consulted 1993
Title: 1:2500 Ordnance Survey Map; SV 8807 Source Date: 1980 Author: Publisher: Surveyor:

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.