MSO7127 - Bronze Age barrow on western end of Bill Hill (Monument)

A Bronze Age barrow is visible as a turf covered mound measuring about 19 metres wide and 1 metre high. It has been mutilated by stone robbing, but still retains a discernable profile. The Bill Hill Stone was once set into its side.

SS 71742 41030. The remains of a turf covered round barrow which is 19.5 metres in diameter and 0.4 metres to 1.3 metres high. It is situated at about 420 metres above Ordnance Datum at the western end of Bill Hill, a few metres west of the watershed in an area of rough grass, scattered heather and tussock grass. It appears to have been deliberately positioned with panoramic views but also dominating the valley westwards down to Challacombe, Barnstaple Bay and beyond. It has been severely mutilated although its outline is still well preserved around most of its periphery. The central area has been robbed and there is a curving access hollow in the southeast. The exposed area shows the content to be earth and stones and probing reveals a good stone content elsewhere. Fragments of a surrounding ditch, about 2 metres wide and 0.2 metres deep, are still evident mainly as water filled depressions, around the northeast and southwest. This barrow falls on the Devon / Somerset County Boundary; one of the markers, 'Bill Hill Stone', shown on the 1890 Ordnance Survey map [1] used to be set in its southwest quadrant (see MSO6984). It is also on the western boundary of the Forest of Exmoor and adjacent to the route of the ancient packhorse track from Lynton to South Molton (MMO495) for which it was possibly a marker - straight down the ridge south from Wood Barrow (MDE1283). Its excellent situation, its symmetry and content all suggest that despite its ragged and mutilated condition this is the remains of a prehistoric burial mound. [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]