Platform cairn 667m ENE of Trewortha Farm

Reasons for Designation

Bodmin Moor, the largest of the Cornish granite uplands, has long been recognised to have exceptional preservation of archaeological remains. The Moor has been the subject of detailed archaeological survey and is one of the best recorded upland landscapes in England. The extensive relict landscapes of prehistoric, medieval and post-medieval date 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. Platform cairns are funerary monuments covering single or multiple burials and dating to the Early Bronze Age (c.2000-1600 BC). They were constructed as low flat-topped mounds of stone rubble up to 40m in external diameter. Some examples have other features, including peripheral banks and internal mounds, constructed on this platform. A kerb of edge-set stones sometimes bounds the edges of the platform, bank or mound, or all three. Platform cairns occur as isolated monuments, in small groups, or in cairn cemeteries. In the latter instances they are normally found alongside cairns of other types. Although no precise figure is available, current evidence indicates that there are under 250 known examples of this monument class nationally. As a rare monument type exhibiting considerable variation in form, a substantial proportion of surviving examples are considered worthy of preservation.

This platform cairn on Twelve Men's Moor has survived largely intact with only minor disturbance from stone robbers. Its proximity to a Neolithic long cairn and to broadly contemporary cairns of differing types, field systems and settlement sites demonstrates well the development and diversity of funerary practices and the organisation of land use during the earlier Prehistoric period.

Details

The monument comprises a large Prehistoric platform cairn, one of a dispersed group of twelve cairns, situated near a Neolithic long cairn and other broadly contemporary cairns, field systems and settlement sites on the wide saddle of Twelve Men's Moor between Kilmar Tor and the Trewortha Tor-Hawkstor ridge on eastern Bodmin Moor. The cairn survives as a flat-topped mound of heaped rubble, 14m in diameter and up to 0.7m high, covered in a thick turf. The flat upper surface is 12m in diameter, with a steep slope around its edge to the perimeter of the cairn. The southern half of the upper surface contains a small irregular depression, up to 0.3m deep, the result of an early stone robbing episode. This cairn is centred 87m WNW of a large round cairn and 61m NW of a Neolithic long cairn, the nearest two cairns in the dispersed group.

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:

15102

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Trahair, J E R, Cornish Archaeology in A survey of cairns on Bodmin Moor, Vol. 17, (1978), 3-24

Other
consulted 9/1991, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1014,
consulted 9/1991, Carter, A./RCHME, 1:2500 AP transcription for SX 2475,
consulted 9/1991, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1013,
Consulted 9/1991, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1013.01,

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