MSO6252 - Bronze Age burial cairn on Dunkery Hill (Monument)

[SS 9080 4265] Beacon [NR] [SS 9080 4265] Cairn [NR] [1] This cairn or "beacon" is not specially named. There is a considerable hole at the top in which a few bushes grow and a conical pile of stones about 3.5 feet in height can be seen on the top. The diameter of the exposed stones is about 72 feet and the cairn's height above the moor is about 6 foot. [2] Scheduled under "Burial Mounds". [3] [SS 9080 4265] Wootton Courtney 1. Beacon on Dunkery Hill. Cairn with hollow in the centre and other mutilations, surmounted by modern stone heap. Visited by Grinsell 26th May 1958. [4] This is a disturbed cairn 25 paces diameter and 6.5 feet high (Wootton Courtenay 1). It is as SS 9081 4266 and listed by Grinsell as Wootton Courteney No. 1. The cairn is almost surrounded by shallow quarry pits, maximum depth 0.5 metres, which probably provided its material. (See G.P.s AO/65/126/5 and 6.) Resurveyed at 1:2500. [5] Considerable hole at the top of the pile. Conical pile of stones rise from the top, about 3.5 feet. [6] A large cairn lies on Dunkery Hill at SS 90813 42666, some 100 metres southwest of Robin How (MSO6251). It comprises a circular mound of small and medium angular stones 24 metres in diameter and 1.8 metres high. A heather covered bank 1 metre wide encloses this stony mound. Several quarry pits to the east and south supplied material for the cairn. The cairn has been disturbed in the recent past as it is now flat-topped, not as described by [2]. The evidence for this being the site of a beacon comes from the OS 25 inch First edition map [7], there is no other evidence that this was the case. The cairn was surveyed using differential GPS as part of the RCHME East Exmoor Project. [8] Round cairn on Dunkery Hill, forming part of a round cairn cemetery. Scheduled. [9] This cairn has been transcribed as an earthwork from aerial photographs as part of the Exmoor National Mapping Programme survey. Centred on circa SS 90814266, the cairn appears slightly irregularly shaped and is circa 22-4 metres in diameter. The quarry pits described above are not clearly visible on the available aerial photographs, probably due to vegetation cover, but may contribute to the apparent irregularity of shape. It is one of eight cairns recorded in this area as part of the survey, although more are certainly present but not visible on the aerial photographs available. [10-12] The Scheduled Monument Condition Assessment of 2009 gave the site a survival score of 3. [13] The site was surveyed in April 2015 as part of the 2015 Exmoor Scheduled Monument Condition Assessment. It was given a survival score of 3. [14] The cairn is shown and labelled on 2020 MasterMap data. [15] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [16]