Round cairn 750m ENE of Trewortha 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. 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 on Twelve Men's Moor has survived substantially intact despite the limited and well-defined actions of stone-robbers and it will retain many original features including burial deposits. Its proximity to other earlier and broadly contemporary burial monuments of differing types and to Prehistoric field systems and settlement sites demonstrates well the development and diversity of funerary practices and the organisation of land use during the Earlier Prehistoric period.

Details

The monument comprises a large Prehistoric round cairn, one of a dispersed group of twelve 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 turf-covered mound of well-consolidated heaped rubble, 11m in diameter and up to 0.9m high, forming an inverted bowl shape with a slightly flattened top. Occasional edge-set stones up to 0.2m high are visible through the turf around the perimeter of the cairn, forming the remains of a low kerb. Stone robbers have disturbed the top of the mound, leaving a hollow measuring 4m east-west by 2m wide and a maximum 0.4m deep. This cairn is centred 57m ENE of a Neolithic long cairn and 87m ESE of a large platform cairn, the nearest two cairns in the dispersed group.

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:

15100

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, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1013.02,
consulted 9/1991, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1014,
consulted 9/1991, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1173,
consulted 9/1991, Carter, A./RCHME, 1:2500 AP transcriptions for SX 2475 & 2575,

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