Details

The scheduling includes an early medieval Christian cemetery located near the
tip of the eastern spur of Abbey Hill on Tresco in the Isles of Scilly.
The cemetery includes at least three slab-lined graves, of a form called long
cist graves, which were discovered in the mid-19th century when a track was
levelled approximately 1m into the hillside as it passed westward along the
side of the spur from Tresco Abbey house. The three known graves occur along
5.5m of the track's northern earth scarp which crosses their WNW-ESE long axes
at an acute angle, obliquely truncating the ESE ends of the western two graves
but only slightly impinging on the south east corner of the eastern grave. The
graves are arranged in line, the alignment of each grave stepped approximately
1m to the north east of its neighbour to the west.
Each grave is evident as a subrectangular cut into the granitic subsoil, lined
around the sides and ends with edge-set slabs approximately 0.2m high, covered
by thin flat slabs and sealed by a backfill of earth and rubble. The grave
cuts extend to a depth of approximately 0.5m into the subsoil, above which
they are covered by approximately 0.3m of present topsoil deposits. The earth-
floored interiors of the truncated western two graves run into the side of the
track as open cavities approximately 0.4m wide and up to 0.16m high, surviving
to 1.3m long at the least-truncated western grave; at the eastern grave the
interior is undisturbed and largely hidden, with only one side slab and
covering slab of the south east corner exposed beneath the backfill of its
grave cut. The original full length of the graves cannot be determined because
the western two are partly truncated by the track and the eastern is still
mostly buried. These graves form the known surviving part of a more extensive
early medieval Christian cemetery that extended over the side of the spur now
occupied by the Tresco Abbey Gardens; during landscaping of the gardens in
1852 the discovery of two of these cist graves was witnessed and recorded by
the Revd H J Whitfield, who also noted human bones and a small cross-marked
stone from simple dug graves nearby. Also considered to have originated from
this cemetery is an early Christian memorial stone bearing an incised
inscription and datable to the later sixth century AD; the stone is now
located 50m south of this scheduling where it was reused as a doorway sill
slab at the 12th century priory church of St Nicholas. The religious focus
evident from this cemetery and the nearby memorial stone provides the earliest
evidence for Christian activity on Scilly, giving its location a sanctity
which later led to the establishment, at the foot of the slope, of the
Benedictine priory which formed the centre of religious administration on the
islands in the later medieval period. Ongoing respect for this religious
sanctity persisted and developed after the abandonment and dissolution of the
priory with the use of its church as a burial ground in the 18th and early
19th centuries.
The modern surface of the track is excluded from the scheduling but the ground
beneath it is included.

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.

Long cist graves are one of the main forms of burial during the early medieval
period (approximately AD 400 - 1066), developing cist burial traditions
already present in the later prehistoric and Roman periods, and with some
examples known from later in the medieval and even into the post medieval
period. They occur principally in coastal regions of western and northern
Britain, sometimes alongside other burial methods such as simple dug graves,
and are associated with Christian burial, consistently approximating to an
east-west orientation.
Long cist graves are subrectangular grave-cuts containing the cist itself, an
elongated stone-built box-like structure, generally around 2m long by 0.5m
wide internally, using edge-set slabs for its sides and ends, covered by flat
slabs and sometimes floored by flat slabs too. The side and end slabs may
directly line the grave cut or may be erected to a pre-determined plan within
it and packed in place against the sides of the cut. Long cists show much
variety in detail of their overall subrectangular plan, often tapered towards
the eastern, foot, end and sometimes with a short taper at the west, head,
end; some even tend to an ovoid plan. Considerable diversity is also apparent
in the size and regularity of slabs employed and hence the resulting plan, due
in part to the nature of the local stone available. Long cists occasionally
occur singly but often in cemeteries which may contain well over 20, and in
rare cases several hundred, graves. The cemeteries, usually unenclosed, often
show deliberate patterning with graves ordered neatly into north-south rows
and may also be associated with broadly contemporary chapels and settlement
sites. Long cist cemeteries are often situated near cemeteries of earlier
burials and many themselves formed the foci for later burial grounds. Their
bias to the south west peninsula within England includes over 25 long cist
cemeteries recorded from Cornwall. Of a further nine recorded from the Isles
of Scilly, at least four retain extant remains, contributing substantially to
our knowledge of the nature, development and organisation of Christianity in
such a small and remote area during the early medieval period.
The early medieval cemetery near the site of the later medieval priory on
Tresco survives reasonably well; despite the truncation of two of its three
known long cist graves, their form and manner of construction are clear and
the eastern grave is almost fully intact and showing little evidence for
disturbance. The cemetery forms an important part of the wider network of
surviving early Christian monuments on Scilly and gave rise to the focus for
the islands' medieval religious administration. It is also one of the few such
cemeteries to be associated with a broadly contemporary early Christian
memorial stone, in this case the earliest datable evidence for Christianity on
the islands. The continuity of religious sanctity originating at such cemetery
sites is demonstrated well by the adjacent siting of the later medieval
Benedictine priory, and its persistence and evolution is unusually illustrated
by the reuse of the priory for post medieval burial.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Ashbee, P, Ancient Scilly, (1974)
O'Neil, BH St J, Ancient Monuments of the Isles of Scilly, (1949)
Ratcliffe, J, Sharpe, A CAU, Fieldwork in Scilly Autumn 1990, (1991)
Thomas, C, Exploration of a Drowned Landscape, (1986)
Whitfield, H J, Scilly and its Legends, (1852)
Other
Parkes, C/CAU, AM 107 for Scilly SMR entry PRN 7324.03, (1988)
Title: 1:2500 Ordnance Survey Map; SV 8914
Source Date: 1980
Author:
Publisher:
Surveyor:

Source: Historic England