Standing stone and surrounding cairn 725m west of Trewalla Farm

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.

Standing stones are ceremonial monuments dating from the late Neolithic and Bronze Age (c2500 - 750 BC). They comprise single or paired upright slabs, ranging in height from under 1m to over 6m where still erect. Standing stones are often conspicuously sited and sometimes are located in or on the edge of round barrows and cairns. Excavations have demonstrated sub-surface features adjacent to standing stones, including stone funerary cists, spreads of small pebbles and various pits and hollows filled in some cases with human bone, cremations, charcoal and domestic artefacts. Similar deposits have been found in excavated sockets for standing stones, which vary considerably in depth. Standing stones may have functioned as markers for routeways, territorial boundaries, graves and meeting points, but their adjacent features show that they also bore a ritual function, forming one of several known ritual monument classes of their period. Estimates suggest about 250 standing stones are known nationally, of which the 16 examples surviving on Bodmin Moor form an important sub-group. They are a long-lived class of monument, highly representative of their period and all examples except those which are extensively damaged are considered to be of national importance.

The standing stone on Tregarrick Tor has survived well, without excavation, and shows evidence for the survival of accompanying features around its base. Its proximity to broadly contemporary field systems and to a major area of ritual monuments on Craddock Moor demonstrates well the organisation of land use and the diversity of ritual practices during the later Neolithic and Bronze Age.

Details

The monument comprises an upright standing stone set in a slight cairn and situated near Prehistoric field systems on the western slope of Tregarrick Tor on SE Bodmin Moor. The standing stone survives as an end-set granite slab, 1.3m high and 0.6m by 0.4m at its base. The stone tapers slightly to the upper end which leans slightly west of vertical. Its surfaces are fracture-faces and are not deliberately dressed. Stock trampling around its base,has revealed a dense cluster of small packing-stones extending 0.25m from the stone's base. The trampling has produced a shallow hollow, 1m wide, around the stone beyond which is a very slight turf-covered mound with occasional small stone rubble visible in its surface, forming a low cairn rising 0.15m high and extending up to 2.5m from the base of the standing stone.

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:

15094

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Barnatt, J, Prehistoric Cornwall: The Ceremonial Monuments, (1982), 97, 236

Other
7/1991, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1246,
7/1991, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1243 & 1251,
7/1991, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1361, 1277 & 1278,
Consulted 7/1991, Carter, A./RCHME, 1:2500 AP transcriptions for SX 2371 & SX 2471 (Cons. 7/1991),
Consulted 7/1991, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1284,

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