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The best known and commonest of all prehistoric
monuments in the county are the round barrows of the Bronze Age, of which
nearly 750 have been recorded, mainly on the hill tops of Exmoor and the
Mendips where the mound is conspicuous over a wide tract of country around.
Others are found at intervals along the ridgeways of the Brendon and Quantock
Hills or in more compact groups, probably representing the growth of a
cemetery over centuries, as on the Blackdown Hills and at Burrington and
Chewton on the Mendips.
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A barrow is more than a simple mound covering a
burial, and is often the result of a series of ceremonial acts and
constructions carried out by a community for one or more of its important
members. Some barrows, such as that at Combe St Nicholas, contained no burial,
and only the charcoal in the central cairn indicates that some ceremonial rite
was practised there. In later centuries, barrows have served as boundary
points and are recorded by Saxon surveyors in their land charters. Some have
been used as beacon sites and often carry that name, while many are the
subject of stories in folklore connected with pixies, giants, the Devil and
Robin Hood, and frequently with hidden treasure. Many are being threatened
with destruction by the powerful machinery of modern farming on land that is
being reclaimed. They are important survivals from the past which are still
being investigated and studied by archaeologists and scholars and must be
protected and preserved.
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Map of round barrows, stone circles and Bronze age artefacts in Somerset