Two cairns 550m and 587m ENE of Trewalla Farm and two adjacent small clearance cairns

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.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

15055

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Sharpe, A, The Minions Area Archaeological Survey and Management (Volume 2), (1989), 279-81
Sharpe, A, The Minions Area Archaeological Survey and Management (Volume 2), (1989), 279-82
Sharpe, A, The Minions Area Archaeological Survey and Management (Volume 2), (1989), 196-9

Other
CAU/RCHME, The Bodmin Moor Survey, Unpubl. draft text. Ch.4, 1.3, fig 17
Hooley, A D, Arch. Item description for AI 120583, (1991)
Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1408.02,
Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1408.01,
consulted 1992, Carter, A. RCHME, 1:2500 AP plot and field trace for SX 2571,

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