Reasons for Designation
Bodmin Moor, the largest of the Cornish granite uplands, has long been
recognised to have exceptional preservation of archaeological remains. The
quality and diversity of the evidence is such that the moor has been the
subject of detailed archaeological survey and hence it forms one of the best
recorded upland landscapes in England. Of particular note are the extensive
relict landscapes of Prehistoric, medieval and post-medieval date. Together
these 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.
Details
The monument includes a large round cairn and an embanked platform cairn with
a central mound, centred 42m apart on a N-S axis, part of a linear cairn group
on the summit dome of Caradon Hill on SE Bodmin Moor.
The northern cairn survives as a circular turf-covered mound, 26m diameter and
up to 1m high, comprising heaped small stones with occasional larger boulders
visible; the N and W perimeters of the cairn are particularly well-defined. In
the interior, some relatively recent disturbance for stone-robbing is evident
as a shallow trench, 3m wide, running in from the SSW almost to the N edge,
together with several linear mounds and hollows parallel to it on each side.
This disturbance penetrates only to a limited depth within the cairn and it is
considered that sub-surface funerary deposits and extensive areas of the old
land surface will have survived intact beneath it. The southern cairn of the
pair has a central turf-covered mound, 13m diameter and 2m high, composed of
small to medium-sized stone. The mound has a hollowed upper surface, 5m in
diameter and 0.6m deep. The mound drops to the level of the platform, 0.5m
higher than the external ground level. On the periphery of the platform is the
outer bank, 22m in external diameter, 2-3m wide and 1.5m high, leaving a gap
1.5-2m wide to the central mound. No trace of the platform projects beyond the
bank. The bank has some gaps in its S sector due to recent stone robbing, but
this cairn shows no evidence of any major disturbance. Both of these cairns
have been surveyed on several occasions since 1907, but neither has been
subject to any recorded archaeological excavation. They lie near the centre of
a linear cairn group which extends on a NE-SW axis along the SW side of the
hill's summit and contains ten recorded cairns of several types typical of the
Early and Middle Bronze Age (c.2000 - 1000 BC)
The concrete-and-steel guy-anchorage for the nearby transmitter mast and the
dumped section of that mast are excluded from the scheduling but the land
beneath them is included.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System number:
15042
Legacy System:
RSM
Sources
Other
Legal
This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
End of official list entry
