Details

Many examples of prehistoric funerary monuments are preserved on Dartmoor,
mostly dating to the Bronze Age (c.2500-500 BC). To celebrate or commemorate
the dead, mounds of earth or stone were piled in a roughly hemispherical
shape over the burial, which was sometimes contained in a small rectangular
structure, or cist, made of stone slabs. Some monuments also include
kerbstones marking the outer edge of the mound and a surrounding ditch.
This is one of four cairns at the waterhole of Black Pool, in the valley
between Butterdon Hill and Western Beacon. This large cairn lies west of
Black Pool. It is oval in shape, 16m long by 12m cross and 0.6m high and
is constructed of stone and earth, now largely turf covered, with a hollow
in the centre suggesting that it may have been disturbed in the past.

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

Dartmoor is the largest expanse of open moorland in Southern Britain and
because of exceptional conditions of preservation, it is also one of the
most complete examples of an upland relict landscape in the whole country.
The great wealth and diversity of archaeological remains provides direct
evidence for human exploitation of the Moor from the early prehistoric
period onwards. The well preserved and often visible relationship between
settlement sites, major land boundaries, trackways, ceremonial and funerary
monuments as well as later industrial remains, gives significant insights
into successive changes in the pattern of land use through time.
This cairn, along with its three near neighbours, occupies a position by a
waterhole on the lower ground between two hills. Its relationship, and that
of its near neighbours, to monuments of the same type, the cairn groups on
Butterdon Hill and Western Beacon in particular, indicates the wealth of
evidence relating to the ritual side of prehistoric life on this part of the
Moor.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Grinsell, L V, 'Devon Archaeological Society Proceedings' in Dartmoor Barrows, , Vol. 36, (1978)
Other
Devon County SMR (SX 65 NE 004),

Source: Historic England