MDE1290 - Two Bronze Age bowl barrows overlooking Warcombe Water (Monument)

(SS 7268 4439 and SS 7273 4441) Tumuli (NR). [1] Two bowl barrows south of South Furzehill, the westward one is 16 paces in diameter and 3.5 feet high, the other is 9 paces in diameter and 1.5 feet high. [2] SS 7267 4439 A badly mutilated bowl barrow with an average diameter of 14.0 metres and 1.0 metre high. The mound has been bisected by a field hedge. SS 7273 4441 A ploughed down bowl barrow 9.0 metres in diameter and 0.4 metres high. Published survey 1:2500 revised. [3] The barrows are good on the 1947 aerial photograph. [4,5] SS 727 444. Two barrows overlooking Warcombe Water 100 metres to the north (of Warcombe Water) and some 305 metres above sea level. They were originally shown as Tumuli in partly enclosed moorland on the 1889 Ordnance Survey [6] and they are Scheduled: Devon 716 [7]. A. SS 72675 44395. A flat topped mound, cut northwest to southeast by an enclosure wall. To the north of the wall the land has now been ploughed and is under pasture whilst to the south the heather and rough grass moorland still exists. The wall has cut through the mound and a stream, about 2 metres wide, on the south side of the wall has eroded to a depth of 1.8 metres from the top of the mound revealing the contents which are predominantly earth with occasional small stones. This stream cutting is central to the mound but no evidence of burial or cist are visible in the interior and no kerb or surrounding ditch are evident. A rowan tree is growing on the southwest side and a mutilation to the west of this suggests robbing or erosion. A slight western `tail' to the barrow is possibly robbed material. The ploughing on the north side has elongated and spread the barrow, so it is now difficult to be precise about the original dimensions, but it appears to have been about 14 metres in diameter and 1 metre high. B. SS 72732 44413. In a pasture field a turf covered mound 8 to 9 metres in diameter and about 0.7 metres high. It has been ploughed down and spread slightly but otherwise it seems intact and in good condition. Probing revealed that there is some stone below the turf but this appears to be predominantly an earthen mound and is almost certainly a barrow. SS 7271 4445. McDonnell [4] reports another round mound visible on aerial photographs [[5] in this area, about 50 metres to the northwest of B, but there is no trace of a feature on the ground. [8] The two barrows A and B are clearly visible on aerial photographs as low mounds, but there is no trace of the third mound described by McDonnell. However, the photographs consulted by McDonnell were not available at the time of survey in 2008. [9,10] A pair of scheduled round barrows to the west of Warcombe Water. One mound is crossed by a field boundary, the land to the south is moorland and the land to the north arable. [11] The site was visited as part of the Scheduled Monument Condition Assessment of 2009. This gave the southwestern barrow a survival score of 8 and the northeastern one a score of 0. [13] The site was surveyed in September 2015 as part of the 2015 Exmoor Scheduled Monument Condition Assessment. Barrow A (southwestern) was given a survival score of 9 and B a score of 0. [14] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [15] The features are depicted and labelled "Tumuli" on the 2022 MasterMap data. [16]