MEM22576 - Post-medieval prospecting pits on Halscombe (Monument)

The Historic Environment Officer for the Exmoor Mires Project undertook a non-intrustive walkover survey of the proposed mire restoration area on Deer Park, which included this site. Noted was a linear hollow, orientated roughly east-west and measuring 69 metres long, 3 metres wide and 1.25 metres deep, with an associated bank of spoil 3 metres wide and 0.6 metres high on its southern side. A second, linear hollow, orientated northwest-southeast lies at its eastern end. This feature measures 62 metres long, 3 metres wide and 0.8 metres deep with intermittent banks of spoil. This forms part of MEM22547. [1] A large scale metric survey of an area of earthworks on Halscombe was undertaken by Hazel Riley in 2013 as part of the Exmoor Mires Project. A linear hollow was surveyed, oriented north-south 69 metres long, 3 metres wide and 1.25 metres deep. Banks of spoil 3 metres wide and 0.6 metres high lie on the south side. A second linear hollow oriented northwest-southeast measuring 62 metres long, 3 metres wide and 0.8 metres deep, with intermittent banks of spoil, lies at the east end. This could also be a shallow prospecting trench or it may have been dug to drain the area. These earthworks are most likely to be part of Frederick Knight’s prospecting for ironstone in the southern part of Exmoor Forest and so date from the early 1850s. [2]