Abraham's Hut round cairn

Reasons for Designation

Round cairns are prehistoric funerary monuments dating to the Bronze Age (c.2000-700 BC). They were constructed as stone mounds covering single or multiple burials. These burials may be placed within the mound in stone-lined compartments called cists. In some cases the cairn was surrounded by a ditch. Often occupying prominent locations, cairns are a major visual element in the modern landscape. They are a relatively common feature of the uplands and are the stone equivalent of the earthen round barrows of the lowlands. Their considerable variation in form and longevity as a monument type provide important information on the diversity of beliefs and social organisation amongst early prehistoric communities. They are particularly representative of their period and a substantial proportion of surviving examples are considered worthy of protection.

Excavations of round cairns and barrows in the region have shown that they demonstrate a wide range of burial rites from simple scatters of cremated material to coffin inhumations and cremations contained in urns, typically dating to the Bronze Age. A common factor is that these mounds were normally used for more than one burial and that the primary burial was frequently on or below the original ground surface, often with secondary burials located within the body of the mound. Abraham's Hut is a good and well preserved example of a small round cairn.

Details

The monument includes buried and earthwork remains of a prehistoric burial mound 1km west of Hartoft End, known as Abraham's Hut. The round cairn is sited towards the top of the hillside overlooking the River Seven to the west, just below the watershed for Stoney Slack to the east. It is not intervisible with Ana Cross round barrow 1.3km up the ridge to the north west, nor with the ring cairn 880m to the south. The cairn is mainly stone built with a number of larger stones which would have required more than one person to put in place. It measures 10m in diameter and 1.2m high with a 3m diameter central hollow up to 0.5m deep. The cairn has a kerbing of large stone slabs up to 1.2m long, which is most obvious on the north western side, and appears to be surrounded by a partly infilled ditch up to 4m wide. The surrounding area is covered by surface stone litter, some of which has been cleared to construct a carefully built 1.6m high modern cairn immediately to the north east of the monument. There are also a number of small quarrying hollows across the hillside. One of these measuring approximately 4m by 2m by 0.6m deep is cut into the line of the ditch on the south side of the round cairn.

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:

32655

Legacy System:

RSM

End of official list entry

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