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 survives substantially intact, affected
only by a limited archaeological excavation of known extent. Its importance
is further enhanced by its excellent range of visible features, by its unusual
valley floor situation and by its association with the many other different
but broadly contemporary classes of funerary, ceremonial and settlement
monuments on Craddock Moor, demonstrating well both the diversity of burial
practices during the Bronze Age and the Prehistoric organisation of land use
on this part of Bodmin Moor.
Details
The monument comprises a well-preserved banked and kerbed platform cairn with
a central kerbed mound near the south-east edge of Craddock Moor on south-east
Bodmin Moor.
The cairn, also known as the Wallabarrow, survives with an outer bank of
heaped earth and stone rubble, l0m in external diameter, 1m wide and up to
0.5m high on the north side but 0.2m high elsewhere, visible around all sides
except the SE. Within the bank is a small circular platform, 6m in diameter
and 0.3m high, composed of heaped small stones, largely turf-covered, and
defined by a contiguous line of end-and edge-set small slabs and boulders
forming the kerb around its perimeter, visible on all sides except the north
and east sectors; the kerb's north sector is masked by an enlargement of the
outer bank. The platform has a central mound, 4m diameter and 1.25m above the
external ground surface, of heaped small and medium-sized stones, up to 0.5m
across, and retained by a kerb of upright end-and edge-set slabs. This cairn
has been surveyed on several occasions since 1907 and was subject to a limited
excavation in 1938, the trenches of which produced three shallow hollows still
visible on the east side, 0.75m wide, and on the NNE and west sides, each 0.5m
wide, running radially from the cairn's outer edge to the central mound's
kerb. This cairn lies on the lower SE-facing slope of a shallow valley and is
situated on the south 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. It is adjacent to Prehistoric settlement remains
bordering the fields of Trewalla Farm to the west.
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.
