MSO10904 - Bronze Age burial cairn on East Pinford (Monument)

"Hut circles" printed on 6 inch Ordnance Survey map. [1] Not "hut circles" but a cairn. [2] The feature is a low robbed cairn with unsurveyable traces of a ditch. See GPs AO/65/128/1 & 2. (Stereo pair). 1/2500 Survey revised. [3] SS 7981 4277. Exmoor 30. Ruined cairn 10 paces diameter, 2 feet high with a hollow in the centre. SS 7981 4276. Exmoor 31. Ruined cairn 5 paces diameter, 1.5 feet high, but might be spoil from opening Exmoor 30. Both visited by Grinsell 24 July 1969. [4] SS 7980 4277. A ruined cairn ten paces diameter two feet high. SS 7980 4276. Another about five paces diameter one and a half feet high. [5] SS 7981 4276. A mutilated cairn up to 9.0 metres in diameter and 0.5 metres high. There are now no obvious traces of a ditch. The minor mound (noted by Grinsell) abuts the cairn and is almost certainly spoil. Surveyed at 1:2500 on PFD. [6,7] Flat topped with two robber holes. 1 metre high. Short tail on south side 0.5 metres high which may be part of a field bank. Close inspection of aerial photographs suggests that this feature may extend for 20 to 30 metres and may be part of MSO11001. The cairn may be associated with a stone setting (MSO6820). [8-10] Magnetometer and resitance surveys were carried out over the cairn in 2005. The latter showed a solid core to the mound supporting its identification as a cairn and also an eroded field bank to the northwest. The magnetic survey located both ferrous anomalies, probably caused by shell splinters from the use of the site as a range in the Second World War, and more diffuse anomalies suggestive of burning within the mound. The 'tail' showed no such anomalies. [12] A small mound is visible on aerial photographs, but it is not clear whether this mound is the cairn or the spoil mound described. [13,14] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [15] The cairn is depicted and labelled on the 2021 MasterMap data. [16]