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MONUMENT NO. 303793

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Prehistoric or Roman cists - no certain evidence of these three features was noted on the foreshore of Higher Town Bay in 1997.

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(SV 9315) Within living memory of circa 1948, heavy
gales and low spring tides revealed burial cists in Higher Town
Bay, at about high water of neap tides. They were close to a
small upright stone (still in place, according to Lewis) and
about 20 yards away from the edge of "a rushy bank". One of the
cists, excavated by Alexander Gibson, was about 3 feet long by 2
feet wide, oriented north/south. It contained a crouched
burial. Ashbee lists the above as cists of the Porth Cressa
type, dated to the Iron Age/Romano-British period. He also
lists a small cairn-covered cist of earlier type, excavated by
B H St J O`Neil on Par Beach in 1949. A sherd of Bronze Age
pottery was found near it, but unstratified. He reproduces
plans of two cists (after O`Neil) exposed on Par Beach in 1949.
These are presumably the two listed by Russell from O`Neil`s
unpublished notes. (1-5)

A cist was found 15 ft further down the beach form the Romano-
British hut, SV 932153 (See SV 91 NW). It measured 4 ft by
3 ft. Another cist 2 ft square was situated 300ft to the east.
(6)
A search of the area failed to locate any cists, which are
probably now covered by the sand.(7)

An unidentifiable structure, perhaps a cist grave was found in the inter-tidal zone towards the middle of Par Beach in 1990. It consists of three small stones set on edge,two of them side by side and the other opposite and 1.0m away. They may represent the remaining side stones of a cist grave. (8)

No evidence of these three cists was identified during the RCHME intertidal survey in March 1997. One of two boulders on the sloping foreshore at SV9327715324 could possibly form part of the alleged cist found in 1990 but it is covered by a deposit sand and stone. (9)

SOURCE TEXT

( 1) Antiquity Publications Limited Antiquity

(O G S Crawford) 2 - 1928 Page(s)420

( 2) by H O'Neill Hencken 1932 The archaeology of Cornwall and Scilly

The county archaeologies 1932 Page(s)32-33

( 3) by Paul Ashbee 1974 Ancient Scilly : from the first farmers to the early Christians : an introduction and survey

(P Ashbee) 1974 Page(s)132, 147, 311-2

( 4) General reference

St Martin's St Helen's and Tean 1948 8 (H A Lewis)

( 5) Externally held archive reference

Typescript Checklist (V Russell 1977)

( 6) General reference

The Scillonian XXIV 1949 163-4 (B H St J O'Neil)

( 7) Field Investigators Comments

F1 JGB 27-JUL-78

( 8) Field Investigators Comments

Ratcliffe J Preston-Jones A 1990 Cornwall Archaeological Unit.

( 9) Field Investigators Comments

Fletcher M 07-APR-1998 RCHME Field Investigation

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