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Bendels Barrows

Round Barrow(s)

Miscellaneous

Details of the barrows on Pastscape

((SS 85494106 & SS 85374093) Bendels Barrows (NR). Exford 3. At SS 85354093 is a mutilated bowl barrow 25 paces across by 2ft. high. Exford 4. At SS 85484106 is a bowl barrow 12 paces across by 2ft. high. Scheduled.
Two round barrows, both of turf construction, are situated on a broad hilltop at about 460 metres O.D., but due to their very low profile, neither can be seen from a distance.
SS 8538 4092. Exford 3. Not published on O.S. maps after 1965, this barrow has a diameter of 22 metres and is 0.4 metres high. A perimeter cropmark suggests that it might originally have been 26 metres across. The sides and top have been dug into by peat cutters whose former activities are much in evidence all over the hilltop, and a cutting for 12 metres around the northern side has produced a ditch, 5 metres wide and 0.2 metres deep.
SS 8549 4107. Exford 4. A cropmark suggests the possibility of an original diameter of 20 metres but there is now only a platform measuring 13 metres across east to west, and 15 metres north to south. It is 0.2 metres high, with a mound 6 metres in diameter and 0.5 metres high set off-centre and towards the southern part of the platform. It is uncertain whether there has been turf digging around this barrow or not but the structure itself certainly seems unmolested. Neither barrow is to be classified as a disc barrow (the platform and mound is a fairly common south-western type), and the S.M.R. field observations and descriptions (S.M.R. source 5) have been transposed.
Both are known locally as Bendels Barrows. (11)

The remains of a two round barrows on Exford Common, known as Bendels Barrows, are visible as earthworks on aerial photographs of the 1940s onwards. Using the terms employed by the above authorities, the Exford 3 barrow is centred on circa SS 85374092 and on aerial photographs of 1947 appears to be circa 22 metres in diameter. It is less visible on later aerial photographs. The Exford 4 barrow is centred on circa SS 85494107 and is visible as an earthwork 13 metres in diameter on aerial photographs of 1947, although as suggested above, disturbed vegetation within 5 metres of the mound may indicate a cropmark suggestive of a berm, potentially extending the monuments original diameter to 22 metres. Damage to the mounds by peat cutting is not apparent on the aerial photographs, but extensive turbaries are evident in the immediate area. (13, 14)
Chance Posted by Chance
16th December 2014ce

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