Round cairn with central cist 970m ENE of Trewortha Farm

Overview

Location

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. Round cairns are funerary monuments covering single or multiple burials and dating to the Bronze Age (c.2000-700 BC). They were constructed as mounds of earth and stone rubble up to 40m in external diameter but usually considerably smaller; a kerb of edge-set stones sometimes bounds the edges of the mound. Burials were placed in small pits, or on occasion within a box-like structure of stone slabs called a cist, let into the old ground surface or dug into the body of the cairn. Round cairns can occur as isolated monuments, in small groups or in larger cemeteries. Their considerable variation in form and longevity as a monument type provides important information on the diversity of beliefs, burial practices and social organisation in the Bronze Age. They are particularly representative of their period and a substantial proportion of surviving examples are considered worthy of preservation.

This round cairn with its central cist on Twelve Men's Moor has survived substantially intact despite the stone-robbing of parts of its northern half. Its southern half, within which most of the cist remains embedded, is entirely undisturbed and the cairn will retain its original sub-surface features, including any burial deposits outside the cist. Its proximity to other broadly contemporary burial monuments of differing types and to field systems and settlement sites demonstrates well both the diversity of funerary practices and the organisation of land use during the Bronze Age.

Details

The monument comprises a Prehistoric round cairn, the central cairn of a widely spaced SSE-NNW linear group of three round cairns, situated near other broadly contemporary cairns, field systems and settlement sites on the wide saddle of Twelve Men's Moor between Kilmar Tor and the Trewortha Tor-Hawkstor ridge on eastern Bodmin Moor. The cairn survives as a mound of heaped rubble, 9m in diameter and up to 0.8m high. Stone-robbing has removed part of the mound's northern half, leaving its lower rubble content intact. The SE half of the cairn remains an intact and well-consolidated mound. Almost at the centre of the cairn is a rectangular box-like structure called a cist, formed of four vertical stone slabs, within which a burial would have been deposited. The cist measures 0.9m internally on its NE-SW long axis by 0.6m wide and is 0.4m deep. There is no evidence for a covering slab. The cist has been revealed in the southern face of the stone-robbed area, and lies embedded in the undisturbed part of the mound. This cairn is situated 175m NNW of the southern cairn in the linear group and 75m south of its northern cairn. Each of these cairns contains a cist.

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:

15098

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Trahair, J E R, 'Cornish Archaeology' in A survey of cairns on Bodmin Moor, , Vol. 17, (1978)
Other
consulted 9/1991, Carter, A./RCHME, 1:2500 AP transcriptions for SX 2475 & 2575,
consulted 9/1991, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1013,
consulted 9/1991, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1014,
consulted 9/1991, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1173.1,
consulted 9/1991, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1173.2,
consulted 9/1991, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1190,

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.