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Round cairn 680m south west of Offerton House

A Scheduled Monument in Offerton, Derbyshire

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Coordinates

Latitude: 53.3225 / 53°19'20"N

Longitude: -1.6895 / 1°41'22"W

OS Eastings: 420776.629425

OS Northings: 380661.409833

OS Grid: SK207806

Mapcode National: GBR JZN0.0P

Mapcode Global: WHCCN.0RQ9

Entry Name: Round cairn 680m south west of Offerton House

Scheduled Date: 16 April 1999

Source: Historic England

Source ID: 1016625

English Heritage Legacy ID: 31247

County: Derbyshire

Civil Parish: Offerton

Traditional County: Derbyshire

Lieutenancy Area (Ceremonial County): Derbyshire

Church of England Parish: Hathersage St Michael and All Angels

Church of England Diocese: Derby

Details

The monument includes a large Bronze Age burial cairn situated on gently
shelving open moorland.
The cairn measures 14m by 12.5m and stands 0.8m high on its downslope (south
east) side but has little height on the upslope. A public footpath crosses the
cairn and there are minor disturbances on its flat top. However, the structure
is well preserved and will contain undisturbed buried features, including
human burial remains. The cairn has a low projecting platform extending to the
south west measuring 2.5m by 1.8m.
The cairn stands close to contemporary settlement and agricultural remains.

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 East Moors in Derbyshire includes all the gritstone moors east of the
River Derwent. It covers an area of 105 sq km, of which around 63% is open
moorland and 37% is enclosed. As a result of recent and on-going
archaeological survey, the East Moors area is becoming one of the best
recorded upland areas in England. On the enclosed land the archaeological
remains are fragmentary, but survive sufficiently well to show that early
human activity extended beyond the confines of the open moors.
On the open moors there is significant and well-articulated evidence over
extensive areas for human exploitation of the gritstone uplands from the
Neolithic to the post-medieval periods. Bronze Age activity accounts for the
most intensive use of the moorlands. Evidence for it includes some of the
largest and best preserved field systems and cairnfields in northern England
as well settlement sites, numerous burial monuments, stone circles and other
ceremonial remains which, together, provide a detailed insight into life in
the Bronze Age. Also of importance is the well preserved and often visible
relationship between the remains of earlier and later periods since this
provides an insight into successive changes in land use through time.
A large number of the prehistoric sites on the moors, because of their rarity
in a national context, excellent state of preservation and inter-connections,
will be identified as nationally important.

Round cairns are prehistoric funerary monuments dating to the Bronze Age
(c.2,000-700 BC). They were constructed as stone mounds covering single or
multiple burials. These burials may be placed within the mound in stone-lined
compartment called cists. They are a relatively common feature of the uplands
and are the stone equivalents 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 prehistoric communities. They are particularly representative of
their period and a substantial proportion of surviving examples are considered
worthy of protection.
The round cairn 680m south west of Offerton House is a well preserved example
and, as such, will retain undisturbed buried remains. Because of its complex
structure, a flat topped cairn with a platform extension, it is unusual and
important to our understanding of Bronze Age funerary monuments.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Other
Barnatt, J W, Peak District Barrow Survey, 1989, unpublished survey
Barnatt, J W, Peak District Barrow Survey, 1989, unpublished survey

Source: Historic England

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