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Round cairn 850m ENE of Sparretts Farm

A Scheduled Monument in St. Cleer, Cornwall

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Coordinates

Latitude: 50.5219 / 50°31'18"N

Longitude: -4.4779 / 4°28'40"W

OS Eastings: 224448.875049

OS Northings: 72051.498728

OS Grid: SX244720

Mapcode National: GBR NF.JFM5

Mapcode Global: FRA 17HP.C8Y

Entry Name: Round cairn 850m ENE of Sparretts Farm

Scheduled Date: 12 March 1992

Source: Historic England

Source ID: 1010236

English Heritage Legacy ID: 15070

County: Cornwall

Civil Parish: St. Cleer

Traditional County: Cornwall

Lieutenancy Area (Ceremonial County): Cornwall

Church of England Parish: St Cleer

Church of England Diocese: Truro

Details

The monument comprises a round cairn, part of a dispersed group of cairns
situated on Craddock Moor on south-east Bodmin Moor.
This cairn survives as a circular mound, 6.5m diameter and 0.75m high,
composed of heaped small and medium-sized stones up to 0.4m across. Around
the base of the mound on the east and SE sides are preserved traces of a
slight ledge, called a berm, 0.5m wide and 0.3m high, which has been masked by
the mound's erosion elsewhere. The cairn shows no trace of previous
disturbance and is covered by a thick turf layer except at its northern edge
where its surface stone content is exposed by a rutted vehicle track. This
cairn has been surveyed but it has not been archaeologically excavated. It
forms part of a dispersed group of seventeen cairns situated in the floor of a
broad shallow valley on the west side of Craddock Moor and at the NW edge of
an extensive area of funerary and ceremonial monuments typical of the early
and middle Bronze Age (c.2000 - 1000 BC) on the Craddock and Rillaton Moors.

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.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

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 Craddock Moor has survived well and has not been
excavated. The cairn's importance is further enhanced by its situation within
a wider grouping of differing but broadly contemporary classes of funerary and
ceremonial monuments on Craddock Moor, demonstrating well both the diversity
and the organisation of burial practice and ritual during the Bronze Age.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Other
CAU/RCHME, The Bodmin Moor Survey, Unpubl. draft text. Ch.4, 1.3, fig 17
consulted 3/1991, Cornwall SMR entry for SMR 1291.02,

Source: Historic England

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