Prehistoric round cairn on Caradon Hill, 310m west of Heather House

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. Round cairns are funerary monuments covering single or multiple burials and dating to the Bronze Age (c.2000-700 BC). They were constructed as mounds of earth and stone rubble up to 40m in external diameter but usually considerably smaller; a kerb of edge-set stones sometimes bounds the edges of the mound. Burials were placed in small pits, or on occasion within a box-like structure of stone slabs called a cist, let into the old ground surface or dug into the body of the cairn. Round cairns can occur as isolated monuments, in small groups or in larger cemeteries. Their considerable variation in form and longevity as a monument type provides important information on the diversity of beliefs, burial practices and social organisation in the Bronze Age. They are particularly representative of their period and a substantial proportion of surviving examples are considered worthy of preservation.

This round cairn on Caradon Hill, 310m west of Heather House, survives reasonably well. Despite the limited attentions of post-medieval stone-robbers and the minor truncation by the boundary wall's ditch passing by its north east edge, the overall form of the cairn is clearly visible and much of its mound remains unexcavated. Consequently original features within the fabric of the mound or let into the prehistoric ground surface beneath it are expected to survive. The old land surface, important for the environmental data it may contain, will also survive under much of the mound's area. The cairn forms part of a wider cairn group on Caradon Hill, demonstrating well the major role of landscape settings in prehistoric religious and funerary practices.

Details

The monument includes a prehistoric round cairn on the upper south east slope of Caradon Hill, a prominent hill on the south east edge of Bodmin Moor. The cairn is an outlier of a large cairn group that extends south west from the hill's summit and along its main spur.

The cairn survives with a low sub-circular mound measuring up to 16.5m north west-south east by 14.1m north east-south west, the mound slightly truncated along its north east edge by a ditch accompanying a substantial post-medieval wall which passes 1m beyond the cairn's visible edge, following the line of a medieval manorial and parish boundary. The cairn's mound has a low, shallow-domed profile, up to 0.9m high, but relatively recent small-scale quarrying for wall stone has produced an uneven surface with several rounded hollows running in from the edges of the mound.

This cairn is part of a wider group including at least 19 prehistoric cairns of various forms dispersed as a linear scatter extending south west from the hill's summit, along the spine and upper flanks of its main spur. These further cairns form the subject of separate schedulings.

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:

15582

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Johnson, N, Rose, P, The Human Landscape to c 1800 in Bodmin Moor An Archaeological Survey, (1994)

Other
Title: 1:10000 Ordnance Survey Map SX 27 SE Source Date: 2002 Author: Publisher: Surveyor:
CAU/RCHME, 1:2500 Bodmin Moor Survey AP plot & Field Traces SX 2670 & 2770, (1984)
CAU, Cornwall SMR entry for PRN 1411.6, (1990)
RCHME, 1:2500 Bodmin Moor Survey AP plot SX 2770, (1984)

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