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One of a number of cairns with cists south of Shavercombe Brook

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1012172
Date first listed:: 29-Nov-1991

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1012172
Date first listed:: 29-Nov-1991

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Devon
District:: South Hams (District Authority)
Parish:: Shaugh Prior
National Park:: DARTMOOR
National Grid Reference:: SX 59710 65698

Reasons for Designation

Dartmoor is the largest expanse of open moorland in Southern Britain and because of exceptional conditions of preservation, it is also one of the most complete examples of an upland relict landscape in the whole country. The great wealth and diversity of archaeological remains provide direct evidence for human exploitation of the Moor from the early Prehistoric period onwards. The well-preserved and often visible relationship between settlement sites, major land boundaries, trackways, ceremonial and funerary monuments as well as later industrial remains, gives significant insights into successive changes in the pattern of land use through time. This cairn with a cist is a comparatively well-preserved example, lying on the valley slope. Its relationship to other cairns indicates the wealth of evidence relating to the ritual side of Prehistoric life on this part of the Moor.

Details

Many examples of Prehistoric funerary monuments are preserved on Dartmoor, mostly dating to the Bronze Age (c.2500-500 BC). To celebrate or commemorate the dead, mounds of earth or stone were piled in a roughly hemispherical shape over the burial, which was sometimes contained in a small rectangular structure, or cist, made of stone slabs. Some monuments also include kerbstones marking the outer edge of the mound and a surrounding ditch. This cairn with a cist lies on a north-west facing slope, south of Shavercombe Brook and south-east of Shavercombe Tor. It consists of a mound 4m in diameter and 0.6m in height with a central cist 1.3m in length, 0.6m in width and 0.4m in depth. The southern end and both side slabs are present and the coverstone, 1.5m in length by 1.3m in width, lies on the cist, but somewhat displaced. There are several other cairns in the immediate vicinity.

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:: 10654
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Worth, R H, 'Trans. Devon Assoc.' in 52nd Report on Barrows, , Vol. 65, (1933), 83-84
Other
Devon County SMR SX 56 NE-186,

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.