Cairnfield and field system north of Eaglestone Flat, 450m south west of Swine Sty

Reasons for Designation

The East Moors in Derbyshire includes all the gritstone moors east of the River Derwent. It covers an area of 105 sq km, of which around 63% is open moorland and 37% is enclosed. As a result of recent and on-going archaeological survey, the East Moors area is becoming one of the best recorded upland areas in England. On the enclosed land the archaeological remains are fragmentary, but survive sufficiently well to show that early human activity extended beyond the confines of the open moors. On the open moors there is significant and well-articulated evidence over extensive areas for human exploitation of the gritstone uplands from the Neolithic to the post-medieval periods. Bronze Age activity accounts for the most intensive use of the moorlands. Evidence for it includes some of the largest and best preserved field systems and cairnfields in northern England as well settlement sites, numerous burial monuments, stone circles and other ceremonial remains which, together, provide a detailed insight into life in the Bronze Age. Also of importance is the well preserved and often visible relationship between the remains of earlier and later periods since this provides an insight into successive changes in land use through time. A large number of the prehistoric sites on the moors, because of their rarity in a national context, excellent state of preservation and inter-connections, will be identified as nationally important.

Cairnfields are concentrations of cairns sited in close proximity to one another. They often consist largely of clearance cairns, built with stone cleared from the surrounding land surface to improve its use for agriculture and on occasions their distribution pattern can be seen to define field plots. Occasionally, some of the cairns were used for funerary purposes although without excavation it is difficult to determine which cairns contain burials. Clearance cairns were constructed from the Neolithic period (from c.3400 BC) although the majority date from the Bronze Age (2000-700 BC). Cairnfields can also retain information concerning the development of land use and agricultural practices as well as the diversity of beliefs and social organisation during the prehistoric period. The cairnfield and field system 450m south west of Swine Sty survives well and provides an insight into Bronze Age agricultural use of this moorland.

Details

The monument includes the remains of a Bronze Age field system comprising lengths of linear field clearance banks and several small cairns. The field system occupies a small bluff of land overlooking the Sandyford Brook. It is likely to have been part of a more extensive area of settlement and agriculture which survives to the east and north east and is the subject of a number of separate schedulings. The field system includes a 60m length of a substantial sinuous bank of turf and stones. This feature is interpreted as a prehistoric field bank, formed through the clearance of field plots on one or both sides of the bank. Vestiges of similar linear clearance can be identified nearby and it is likely that further remains survive below ground. The field banks incorporate several elongated cairns, while further cairns stand isolated from the field banks, one example having a diameter of approximately 2m. The prehistoric field system survives in an area which also contains further traces of linear features and lynchets forming the remains of at least two rectangular field plots. These are interpreted as the remains of medieval or post-medieval enclosures. Within the scheduling is a ruinous drystone animal pen which is likely to be of post-medieval date.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 5 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:

31257

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Barnatt, J W, Derbyshire Archaeological Journal in Bronze Age Remains on the East Moors of the Peak District, (1986), 43-4
Barnatt, J W, Derbyshire Archaeological Journal in Bronze Age Remains on the East Moors of the Peak District, (1986), 43-4

End of official list entry

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