MSO7660 - Bronze Age burial cairn at Selworthy Beacon (Monument)

A bowl barrow 13 paces in diameter and 3 feet high (Minehead Without 8). Visited By Grinsell 11 September 1959. [1] One of a pair of confluent bowl barrows. Has a large hole in the centre and partly overlies a smaller bowl barrow to the west (MSO11436), thought to be a spoil heap by Grinsell (Minehead Without 8a). [2] One of a pair of confluent cairns. It has a hollow centre and heather and gorse have grown up the sides to partly cover the hollow. [3] The mound 1.05 metres high and 12 metres across with hole in centre exposing stones. Second small mound 0.9 metres high with hole in the north side. [4] Incorrectly identified as Grinsell's Minehead Without 5 by the Ordnance Survey Archaeological Division and D Thackray. [5] A large cairn, part of a group east of Selworthy Beacon, was recorded as part of the RCHME Exmoor project. The cairn was recorded using differential GPS and lies at NGR SS 92502 47907. It comprises a stony mound, covered with gorse and heather, with stone exposed in the centre. The mound is 12 metres in diameter and 1.1 metres high. The centre of the cairn has been dug out, creating a large depression, 5.7 metres in diameter and 1.2 metres deep. The spoil from this hole has been piled up on the west and east sides of the cairn in the form of two mounds (MSO11436 & MSO11437). [6] Scheduling revised with new national number (was Somerset 345) on 3 September 2002. [7] The cairn is depicted on the Ordnace Survey 1st edition map. [8] SS 925 479. Group of Cairns East of Selworthy Beacon. Scheduled. [10] 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. [11] The cairn is visible as an earthwork on aerial photographs. The cairn is centred at SS 9250 4791 and is as described in source [6]. The confluent circular mound to the west (SS 9249 4791, MSO11436) measures about 7 metres in diameter and the mound to east (SS 9251 4791, MSO11437) measures 7 metres long by 5 metres wide. [12-14] The Scheduled Monument Condition Assessment of 2009 gave the site a survival score of 7. [15] The site was surveyed in June 2015 as part of the 2015 Exmoor Scheduled Monument Condition Assessment. It was given a survival score of 8. [16] The feature is the most central and largest of three roughly circular features depicted on the 2020 MasterMap data and labelled "Tumuli". [17]