MSO7921 - Bronze Age burial cairn on Porlock Common (Monument)

SS 8478 4609. Cairn. A stony mound situated at about 425 metres Ordnance Datum is visible in a prominent position on a moderate north facing slope of Porlock Common. The remains comprise a heather and gorse covered mound 6 metres in diameter and 0.5 metres at its maximum height. The west side has been mutilated by robbing, and a narrow 'trench' suggestive of a robbed out kerb is evident around the southwest periphery, though there is no indication of a kerb around the remainder of the mound. Probing suggests the content of the remaining mound is quite stony. There are extensive views to the north and west and it is most likely that this is a robbed cairn of prehistoric origin. [1] A Bronze Age cairn was recorded at NGR SS 8478 4609 [1]. There is no such monument at the location given by the RCHME Field Investigation, but a cairn lies on the southern edge of Porlock Common, 200 metres west of the Whit Stones, at SS 85137 46210. It comprises a circular, stony heather covered mound, 6.5 metres in diameter and a maximum of 0.7 metres high. A depression and linear mound on the southwest edge has been caused by robbing. It is most likely that this is the cairn recorded by the RCHME in 1990. The cairn was surveyed using GPS as part of the RCHME East Exmoor Project. [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. [3,4]