One of a number of cairns at Black Pool

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 provides 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 well preserved cairn, along with its three near neighbours, occupies a position by a waterhole on the lower ground between two hills. Its relationship and that of of its near neighbours, to other monuments of the same type, the cairn groups on Butterdon Hill and Western Beacon in particular, 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 is one of four cairns at the waterhole of Black Pool, in the valley between Butterdon Hill and Western Beacon. The cairn lies south of Black Pool. It is oval in shape, 16m long by 12m across and 0.7m high and is constructed of earth and stone and now turf covered. The hollow in the centre suggests that it may have been disturbed in the past.

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:

10607

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Grinsell, L V, Devon Archaeological Society Proceedings in Dartmoor Barrows, Vol. 36, (1978), 141

Other
Devon County SMR (SX65NE-214),

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