Details

The monument is a round cairn located on Orton Scar 460m NNE of Broadfell and
adjacent to the highest point attained by the road connecting Orton and
Appleby. It includes a slightly oval, largely turf-covered mound of limestone
rubble up to 1.2m high with maximum dimensions of 17.7m by 17.5m.

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

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.

Despite minor surface disturbance to the monument's summit, the round cairn
460m NNE of Broadfell survives reasonably well. It is a rare survival in
Cumbria of an unexcavated example of this class of monument and will contain
undisturbed archaeological deposits within the mound and upon the old land
surface beneath.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Other
Crow, J., FMW report, (1986)
Cumbria SMR, Cairn 1/3 mile N of Broadfell, (1987)
Darvill,T., MPP Single Monument Class Description - Bowl Barrows, (1988)
RCHME, Westmorland, (1936)

Source: Historic England