MSO7658 - Bronze Age burial cairn at Selworthy Beacon (Monument)

A bowl barrow 16 paces in diameter and 3 feet high (Minehead Without 6) with a large hollow in the centre. Visited by Grinsell 11 September 1959. [1] This is a truncated bowl barrow. [2] Covered with gorse and heather, otherwise in good condition. [3] Wrongly identified by the Ordnance Survey Archaeological Division and D Thackray as Grinsell's Minehead Without 4b. Situated immediately to the east of MSO7657. [4] The cairn was surveyed using differential GPS as part of the RCHME East Exmoor project. It comprises a large, circular mound, 18 metres in diameter and 0.7 metres high which is covered in heather and gorse and contains two depressions. A pronounced circular depression, 6.5 metres in diameter and 1 metre deep lies in the northern side; a smaller depression lies in the southern side. These may have been caused by excavation or stone robbing. [5] Monument scheduled on 3 September 2002. [6] SS 925 479. Group of Cairns East of Selworthy Beacon. Scheduled. [8] Of the group of 11 cairns on the ridge of Selworthy Beacon, 2 or 3 were open in 1807 by Richard Fenton. Only charcoal was recovered. [9] The cairn is visible as an earthwork on aerial photographs. [10-12] The Scheduled Monument Condition Assessment of 2009 gave the site a survival score of 4. [13] The site was surveyed in June 2015 as part of the 2015 Exmoor Scheduled Monument Condition Assessment. It was given a survival score of 4. [14] The feature is depicted and is one of two labelled "Tumuli" on the 2020 MasterMap data. [15]