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 despite the
limited actions of stone robbers. The cairn's 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 small ovoid platform cairn with a central circular
mound, near the centre of Craddock Moor on south-east Bodmin Moor.
The cairn survives with a small circular mound, 5m diameter and 1m high, of
heaped small to medium sized stone rubble, set centrally within a low platform
also of heaped stone rubble. The platform is elongated NW-SE, but is visible
on all sides of the mound except the west; it measures 10.5m NW-SE by 6.5m
NE-SW, and rises to 0.3m high at the NW end. Some relatively recent stone
extraction has produced a shallow trough WNW-ESE across the mound, l.5m wide
and 0.3m deep, clearly dug in from the WNW side. The form of this cairn is
well-preserved, with only minor disturbance evident from the shallow trough in
the upper surface. It was surveyed and recorded in 1984 but has not been
archaeologically excavated. It is one of three similar cairns dispersed about
a NW-facing hillside near the centre 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.
