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 and banked cairns are funerary monuments dating to the early and
middle Bronze Age (c.2000-1000 BC), covering single or multiple burials. They
were constructed as mounds of stone rubble, up to 40m in external diameter.
Banked cairns have peripheral banks of stone marking the edge of the mound.
In both types of cairn a kerb of edge-set stones sometimes bounds the edge 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. Both cairn types can occur as isolated
monuments, in small groups or in cairn 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 monument on Craddock Moor includes both a banked and a round cairn
surviving reasonably intact. Despite the actions of stone-robbers, both
cairns clearly display their original forms and will retain many original
features, including burial deposits. Their close proximity to each other and
to the many different types of burial and ritual monument nearby demonstrates
well the diversity of funerary and ceremonial practices during the Bronze Age,
while their close association with the two clearance cairns illustrates the
changing pattern of Prehistoric land-use in this area of the moor.
Details
The monument includes two large funerary cairns, the larger a banked cairn,
the smaller a low round cairn, together with two small clearance cairns close
to, but separate from, the funerary cairns. The monument is situated on the
south-east part of Craddock Moor on south-east Bodmin Moor.
The funerary cairns are centred 30m apart on an east-west axis. The larger,
eastern, cairn survives as a banked cairn with a central mound, 13m diameter
and 2m high, separated from the outer bank by a clear 3-4m wide gap at ground
level. The outer bank is 27m in external diameter, 3m wide and up to 0.75m
high, with a large break in the southern sector and narrow breaks in its
eastern and northern sectors. Both the mound and bank are composed of heaped
small to medium sized stone rubble up to 0.5m across. Some relatively recent
stone extraction has hollowed and spread the west side of the mound, filling
the space to the outer bank in that sector, but leaving the centre and east
half of the mound and the entire bank substantially intact, consolidated and
largely turf-covered. The smaller, western, cairn is a low round cairn, 11m
diameter and 0.4m high, largely turf and shrub covered but exposed stone at
the east side shows a heaped stone content up to 0.75m across. The monument
also contains two much smaller cairns of heaped small stones up to 0.2m
across; these are centred 2.5m SW of the eastern cairn's outer bank and 9.5m
north of the western cairn`s edge. Each of these cairns is 2m diameter and
0.2m high, typical of small mounds of stone cleared from the land surface by
Prehistoric farmers. This is an isolated cairn group situated in a prominent
hilltop position at the southern edge of 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.
