Reasons for Designation
The Isles of Scilly, the westernmost of the granite masses of south west
England, contain a remarkable abundance and variety of archaeological remains
from over 4000 years of human activity. The remote physical setting of the
islands, over 40km beyond the mainland in the approaches to the English
Channel, has lent a distinctive character to those remains, producing many
unusual features important for our broader understanding of the social
development of early communities.
Throughout the human occupation there has been a gradual submergence of the
islands' land area, providing a stimulus to change in the environment and its
exploitation. This process has produced evidence for responses to such change
against an independent time-scale, promoting integrated studies of
archaeological, environmental and linguistic aspects of the islands'
settlement.
The islands' archaeological remains demonstrate clearly the gradually
expanding size and range of contacts of their communities. By the post-
medieval period (from AD 1540), the islands occupied a nationally strategic
location, resulting in an important concentration of defensive works
reflecting the development of fortification methods and technology from the
mid 16th to the 20th centuries. An important and unusual range of post-
medieval monuments also reflects the islands' position as a formidable hazard
for the nation's shipping in the western approaches.
The exceptional preservation of the archaeological remains on the islands has
long been recognised, producing an unusually full and detailed body of
documentation, including several recent surveys.
The early linear boundaries on the Isles of Scilly were constructed from the
Bronze Age to the early medieval period (c.2000 BC-AD 1066): closer dating
within that period may be provided by their visible relationships to other
classes of monument, or by their relationship with an earlier recorded sea
level. They consist of stone walls, up to 3m wide and 1.1m high but usually
much slighter, and are formed of heaped rubble, often incorporating edge- or
end-set slabs called orthostats.
Linear boundaries served a variety of functions. These included separating
land regularly cultivated from that less intensively used, separating land
held by different social groups, or delineating areas set aside for
ceremonial, religious and funerary activities. Linear boundaries are often
associated with other forms of contemporary field system. The Isles of Scilly
contain examples of an associaton, rarely encountered elswhere, whereby
certain linear boundaries directly link several cairns, entrance graves and
cists in some groups of prehistoric funerary monuments.
Linear boundaries along the coastal margin of the islands are often
indistinguishable from the truncated upper walls of early field systems whose
remaining extent has been destroyed by the rising sea level. Linear boundaries
form a substantial part of the evidence of early field systems recorded on the
Isles of Scilly. They provide significant insights into the physical and
social organisation of past landscapes and form an important element in the
existing landscape. Even where truncated by the rising sea level, their
surviving lengths provide important evidence for the wider contemporary
context within which other nationally important monuments at higher altitudes
were constructed. A substantial proportion of surviving examples are
considered worthy of protection.
The prehistoric boundary south west of The Bar survives reasonably well,
clearly displaying its manner of construction and its relationship to the
topography; despite minor displacements by wave action its extensive survival
well into the inter-tidal zone confirms its overall long term stability
against a considerable period of submergence. The re-use of the saddle quern
in the boundary illustrates well the depth of chronology in the prehistoric
settlement of the area. Despite some disturbance to their surface form, the
cairns will retain their lower deposits intact and will preserve portions of
the pre-submergence land surface on which they were built, forming a valuable
source of early environmental data. The boundary and cairns in this scheduling
complement the other prehistoric settlement and funerary features surviving
from the higher ground to the inter-tidal zone on Bryher, providing an
unusually extensive view of prehistoric land use across the altitude range
into now-submerged levels.
Details
The scheduling includes a prehistoric linear boundary surviving along the
middle shore south west of The Bar, on the east coast of Bryher in the Isles
of Scilly. Adjacent to the south west end of the boundary are two broadly
contemporary cairns.
The boundary is visible as a closely spaced or continuous row of boulders and
smaller slabs forming a slightly curving north east-south west line which
extends for 72m along the middle shore with a short break towards its south
west end. The boundary includes boulders to 0.9m high and 1.5m wide but its
stones average 0.6m high and include some edge-set slabs; an aggregation of
rubble against the boundary due to its effect as a slight breakwater, coupled
with slight displacement of some individual slabs from its line, gives the
boundary an overall appearance as a linear rubble spread generally 2m wide.
One of the edge-set slabs near the centre of the boundary is a re-used saddle
quern, a prehistoric corn-grinding stone, neatly hollowed across one face
where the grain was placed for grinding to flour by a rubbing stone.
From 6m west of the boundary's south west end are the sub-circular rubble
mounds of two small cairns, adjoining on an east-west axis and considered
contemporary with the nearby boundary. The eastern cairn is 9m in diameter and
up to 0.5m high; the western is up to 7m in diameter and 0.25m high. Wave
action has clearly caused some spreading of their surface rubble, preventing
close definition of their original mound forms, but no disturbance is evident
to their lower rubble and the deposits beneath.
Beyond this scheduling, further broadly contemporary field system remains
occur from 245m to the south, in the inter-tidal zone of Green Bay, Bryher.
These inter-tidal remains along the east coast of Bryher complement extensive
prehistoric cairn cemeteries and associated field systems on the island's
higher ground of Shipman Head Down, Gweal Hill and Samson Hill.
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.
