Embanked platform cairn with internal mound and peripheral berm 1km NNE 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. Platform cairns are funerary monuments covering single or multiple burials and dating to the Early Bronze Age (c.2000-1600 BC). 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 this 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 monument class nationally. As a rare monument type exhibiting considerable variation in form, a substantial proportion of surviving examples are considered worthy of preservation.

This platform cairn on Craddock Moor is well preserved and has never been excavated. Its importance is further enhanced by its association with the many other differing but broadly contemporary classes of funerary and ceremonial monuments on Craddock Moor, demonstrating well both the diversity and the organisation of burial practice and ritual during the Bronze Age.

Details

The monument comprises a large circular platform cairn with a peripheral berm, near the north-east edge of Craddock Moor on south-east Bodmin Moor. The cairn is well preserved and survives as a relatively low mound with a flattened top and steep sides, 24m diameter and 1m high. It is largely turf-covered but its content of heaped small to medium stone is visible in places. The cairn's upper surface has a slight peripheral bank, 14m in external diameter, 1.5m wide and up to 0.2m high, leaving a level margin 0.5-1m wide between the bank and the sides of the cairn. Within this bank is a low mound 3.5m diameter and 0.3m high, located slightly north of the cairn's centre. Around the base of the mound's sides, a broad low ledge, called a berm, is visible, 3.5m wide and 0.25m high, giving a total diameter for the cairn of 31m. The form of this cairn is well-preserved, with only minor disturbance evident from slight hollows in the upper surface. It has been surveyed and recorded on several occasions since 1948 but has not been excavated. This is an isolated cairn situated on the highest point of Craddock Moor amid an extensive area of funerary and ceremonial monuments typical of the early and middle Bronze Age (c.2000 - 1000 BC) on the Craddock and Rillaton Moors.

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:

15056

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Sharpe, A, The Minions Area Archaeological Survey and Management (Volume 2), (1989)
Trahair, J E R, Cornish Archaeology in A survey of cairns on Bodmin Moor, Vol. 17, (1978), 3-24

Other
platform cairn with peripheral bank, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1404,
CAU/RCHME, The Bodmin Moor Survey, Unpubl. draft text. Ch.4, 1.3, fig 17

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