Details

The monument includes a prehistoric kerbed platform cairn situated on the
gently domed summit of the northern hill of Annet, a relatively large
uninhabited island in the south west of the Isles of Scilly.
The platform cairn survives with a circular mound of heaped rubble 7m in
diameter and up to 0.75m high. The sides rise to a flattened upper platform,
4.5m in diameter defined by a kerb of six spaced slabs and small boulders, up
to 0.4m high, visible around the western half and on the south east of the
platform. The kerb slabs project through the thick thrift turf that blankets
the cairn and surrounding ground surface; an erosion hollow in that turf near
the centre of the cairn reveals the cairn's rubble at a depth of 0.25m below
the turf surface, implying that the kerb would originally have formed a more
prominent feature before the turf developed.
This monument is the only prehistoric funerary cairn recorded on Annet. Beyond
it, partial exposures of prehistoric field systems appear through the deep
blanket of thrift near the western tip of the island, from 280m to the
south west, and on the southern area of the island where they are associated
with broadly contemporary settlement sites and middens.

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

The Isles of Scilly, the westernmost of the granite masses of south west
England, contain a remarkable abundance and variety of archaeological remains
from over 4000 years of human activity. The remote physical setting of the
islands, over 40km beyond the mainland in the approaches to the English
Channel, has lent a distinctive character to those remains, producing many
unusual features important for our broader understanding of the social
development of early communities.
Throughout the human occupation there has been a gradual submergence of the
islands' land area, providing a stimulus to change in the environment and its
exploitation. This process has produced evidence for responses to such change
against an independent time-scale, promoting integrated studies of
archaeological, environmental and linguistic aspects of the islands'
settlement.
The islands' archaeological remains demonstrate clearly the gradually
expanding size and range of contacts of their communities. By the post-
medieval period (from AD 1540), the islands occupied a nationally strategic
location, resulting in an important concentration of defensive works
reflecting the development of fortification methods and technology from the
mid 16th to the 20th centuries. An important and unusual range of post-
medieval monuments also reflects the islands' position as a formidable hazard
for the nation's shipping in the western approaches.
The exceptional preservation of the archaeological remains on the islands has
long been recognised, producing an unusually full and detailed body of
documentation, including several recent surveys.
Platform cairns are funerary monuments of Early Bronze Age date (c.2000-1600
BC). They were constructed as low flat-topped mounds of stone rubble, up to
40m in external diameter though usually considerably smaller, covering single
or multiple burials. Some examples have other features, including peripheral
banks and internal mounds constructed on the platform. A kerb of slabs or
edge-set stones sometimes bounds the edge of the platform, and a peripheral
bank or mound if present. Platform cairns can occur as isolated monuments, in
small groups or in cairn cemeteries. In cemeteries they are normally found
alongside cairns of other types.
Platform cairns form a significant proportion of the 387 surviving cairns on
the Isles of Scilly; this is unusual in comparison with the mainland. All
surviving examples on the Isles of Scilly are considered worthy of protection.

This platform cairn on Annet has survived well and will retain good
preservation of its features due to its protection from surface erosion by the
unusual thick thrift cover. The location of this monument near the highest
point on the island and its relationship with the island's broadly
contemporary settlement evidence demonstrates well the influence of topography
on funerary and ritual activity and the wider organisation of land use among
prehistoric communities.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Other
CAU, AM 107 for Scilly SMR entry PRN 7048, (1988)
CAU, AM 107s for Scilly SMR entries PRN 7046-7; 7050, (1988)
Title: 1:10000 Ordnance Survey Map, SV 80 NE
Source Date: 1980
Author:
Publisher:
Surveyor:

Source: Historic England