MEM22806 - Bronze Age cairn west of Dunkery Beacon (Monument)

Known as Cutcombe 5a, this monument takes the form of a rim of a probably robbed cairn. It is around 20 metres in diameter and has a flattish top with two modern structures on it. The cairn merges into the west side of MEM22803.

Visited by Grinsell on 25 May 1958. Dunkery Beacon is a cairn, listed by Grinsell as Cutcombe 5. It is now surmounted by a modern, conical monument erected by the National Trust. Against its western side and confluent with it are what appears to be the remains of another cairn. This is now robbed and very disturbed. Re-surveyed at 1:2500. [1,2] SS 89114159 Cutcombe 5a. Rim of probably robbed cairn adjoining Dunkery Beacon on west (listed with reference to OS record). [1,3-4] SS 8912 4158. Cutcombe 5a. A cairn 20 metres in diameter and 0.5 metres high, with a flattish top 16 metres across which merges into the west side of 5. The surface comprises smallish stones compacted and trampled. Two rectangular structures have been constructed on the top, one measuring 4 metres by 3 metres, the other 6 metres by 4 metres. Their walling, of unmortared piled and coursed stones, is from 0.4 to 0.8 metres high and includes horizontally laid slabs, apparently not robbed from the cairn. Both appear to be fairly recent and made as some form of "shelter." [5,6] Cutcombe 5a is a circular mound 15 metres in diameter and not exceeding 0.5 metres in height. On the southern side kerbstones are beginning to protrude through the loose surface stones. This kerb comprises edge set slabs up to 0.9 metres long. An 0.8 metre high modern cairn dominates the monument. [7] The five cairns on the summit of Dunkery Beacon were surveyed in August 2004 in response to a request by The National Trust to cover some of the monuments to protect them from further visitor damage. [8] The cairn was transcribed as closely as possible from aerial photographs as part of the Exmoor National Mapping Programme survey, but in spite of its size it is not clearly visible, due in part to the vegetation cover of this area and the erosion caused by visitors to the site. [9-16] The Scheduled Monument Condition Assessment of 2009 gave the site a score of 9. [17] The site was surveyed in April 2015 as part of the 2015 Exmoor Scheduled Monument Condition Assessment. It was given a survival score of 9. [18] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [19]