MSO8747 - Bronze Age burial cairn on Halscombe Allotment (Monument)

A mound was noted as a flat topped stony mound during field survey and interpreted as a prehistoric burial cairn; however, a review of aerial photography of the site suggested it might have arisen from World War Two use of the site.

A cairn on the southwest facing slope of Halscombe Allotment consists of a flat topped stony mound measuring 5.4 metres in diameter and 0.4 metres high. [1] No evidence of a cairn can be seen on aerial photographs of this area. However, military training activities of Second World War date took place on Halscombe and evidence for this can be seen as earthworks on aerial photographs of the 1940s. Several low mounds or surface disturbances pertaining to this activity have been transcribed less than 10 metres to the south of the recorded location of this possible cairn. It must be considered possible, if perhaps unlikely, that the military remains have been mistaken for an earlier monument. [2] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [3]