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

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] The cairn was visited by the Historic Environment Officer of the South West Peatland Partnership in October 2023. It is certainly a prehistoric burial cairn and not related to Second World War military training activity, although evidence of practice trenches and field gun positions are recorded in the vicinity [4]