MEM22574 - Post-medieval prospecting pit on Halscombe (Monument)

The Historic Environment Officer for the Exmoor Mires Project undertook a non-intrustive walkover survey of the proposed mire restoration area on Deer Park, which included this site. Noted was a trench, orientated northwest to southeast, with a bank of spoil on the eastern side. The trench measures 15 metres long, 3 metres in width and is 0.5 metres deep, while the bank is 3 metres wide and 0.3 metres high. A smaller, silted-up ditch, 98 metres long, 4 metres wide and 0.25 metres deep runs from the southeastern end to the Halscombe Water tributary and was presumably intended to drain the main working. At its southern end the drainage ditch is cut through an earlier contour leat MEM22577. This feature forms part of MEM22547. [1] A large scale metric survey of an area of earthworks on Halscombe was undertaken by Hazel Riley in 2013 as part of the Exmoor Mires Project. A linear trench was surveyed, oriented northwest-southeast with a bank of spoil on the east side. The trench is 15 metres long, 3 metres wide and 0.5 metres deep; the bank is 3 metres wide and 0.3 metres high. A shallow reed-filled linear hollow 98 metres long, 4 metres wide and 0.25 metres deep runs from the south end of the trench to the stream below and was dug to drain the trench. Banks of spoil lie on the east side of the ditch, at the lower, south end. The ditch has cut through a contour leat (MEM22577). These earthworks are most likely to be part of Frederick Knight’s prospecting for ironstone in the southern part of Exmoor Forest and so date from the early 1850s. [2]