Scheduled Monument: CAIRN 880M SOUTH WEST OF LEAM HALL (1018483)

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION 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 compartments 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. Much of the cairn 890m south west of Leam Hall Farm survives in good condition and, as such, retains buried information on prehistoric funerary practice. DETAILS The monument includes a prehistoric cairn located on a slight ridge of gently shelving land on Eyam Moor. The monument is a Bronze Age cairn, likely to have been funerary, measuring 13.5m by 12.5m and standing about 0.5m high. It is located in a relatively isolated position, away from the main prehistoric cairnfields on Eyam Moor which were associated with land clearance and agriculture during the Bronze Age. There are, however, several other cairns in this part of the Moor which also stand in relatively isolated positions and this small dispersed group is interpreted as a barrow cemetery. This example of a funerary cairn is complete except for a small trench cut into its western side. Small quarry pits to its immediate north and east indicate that the trench was likely to have been for stone procurement rather than the result of antiquarian activity. Although large stones have been exposed at the inner end of the trench, which may be part of a central cist structure, the interior of the cairn appears largely undisturbed and likely to contain intact buried information regarding prehistoric funerary practice. SELECTED SOURCES Unpublished Title Reference - Author: Barnatt, J. W. - Title: Highlow Hall and Eyam Moor ... Archaeological Survey 1994-5. - Date: 1995 - Page References: 33 - Type: DESC TEXT - Description: unpublished survey report