Platform cairn with central mound 900m ESE of Lambadla 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 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.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

15058

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Other
Unpubl. draft consulted 3/1991, CAU/RCHME, The Bodmin Moor Survey (consulted 3/1991), The Prehistoric and Historic Landscape,
consulted 3/1991, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1279.03,

End of official list entry

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