MMO101 - Bronze Age burial cairn on Ilkerton Ridge (Monument)

SS 7189 4474. Hut Circle. [1] Hut Circle on Ilkerton Ridge. [2] SS 719 447. A round barrow, approximately 9 yards diameter. [3] SS 7188 4474. A mutilated cairn 8.4 metres in diameter and 0.5 metres high with a central 0.5 metre deep pit. It has a strong stone content. Resurveyed at 1:2500. [4] The monument has recently been swaled, and shows up clearly. The sides are angled at c.45 degrees and it is of stone and earth. Pit diameter 3 paces, overall diameter 9 paces, height 2 feet. Possibly "pit" is original feature not robbing. [5] SS 71886 44745 A cairn 7.5 metres in diameter and of 1 metre maximum height. It is evident as a well formed heather, turf and bracken covered mound built on a gentle west facing slope below a shallow saddle on Ilkerton Ridge, some 310 metres above Ordnance Datum. It has been encroached on by tracks on the uphill and downhill sides. Probing revealed a content of small stones and there is a central irregular hollow, some 3 metres in diameter and 0.5 metres deep. Eardley-Wilmot, who saw the hollow after swaling in 1981 suggests it may be an original feature [5], but this is doubtful and it is most likely due to robbing, possibly for material to repair the tracks. It was probably this robbing which resulted in its classification as a hut circle by the Ordnance Survey in 1888 [6]. Given its situation, form and content and its proximity to several other cairns in the vicinity (MDE1287, MDE1292, MDE1314, MDE20327) it is almost certainly a prehistoric burial cairn. [5-7] The cairn is clearly visible on aerial photographs as a small oval mound measuring approximately 7.5 metres in diameter. [8-9] The cairn is depicted and labelled on 2021 MasterMap data at SS 7188 4474. [10] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [11]