More information : [ST 7808 4890] STANDING STONE [OE] (Human bones found
A.D. 1819) (1)
A large, chambered barrow, was completely levelled when the
garden of Fromefield House was extended in, or about, 1820. Five
chambers, containing skeletons and pottery, were revealed,
also a large stone which was reported as 'covering them'. The
bones were left in situ and the stone, some 5 ft. high, erected
over the site. (a)
Neolithic 'A' sherds from this Long Barrow are in Taunton Museum. (4)
Standing Stone - scheduled. (5)
The stone, which is 6 ft. x 3 ft. x 1 1/2 ft. stands, where
published, in a thickly overgrown piece of ground owned by
Mr. Cuss, formerly a gardener at Fromefield House: he has not
found any re-interred bones. There is no trace of a mound.
Two stones at ST 7817 4897, in the garden of 'Stonelands', are
thought to come from this barrow; both are standing, one 5 ft.
and the other 2 ft. high.
(See GP. AO/64/268/2).
In the garden of 'Ormonde', at ST 7818 4897, is a prostrate
stone measuring 6 ft. x 2 ft. x 1 1/4 ft.
Surveyed at 1/2500. (6)
Two cuttings made in 1965 revealed that the mound was
constructed of limestone slabs. Bases of six stoneholes were
found, human bones, and some pottery. The remaining capstone,
placed in a vertical position in 1820, was removed. (7)
The 1965 excavation was made for DOE prior to the levelling of the
site and the building of a housing estate. The area had been
much disturbed by the 1820 landscape gardening, but slight
remains of a barrow mound were detected around the reset marker
stone. Excavation across this mound and at the marker stone
position discovered: (a) Six shallow holes, apparently randomly
spaced, which could not be satisfactorily interpreted; (b)
an aggregation of limestone slabs, which could have represented a
collapsed peristalith or revetment wall, or might have been
merely mound material; (c) fragmentary human bones representing
at least 15 individuals, though most of the major bones were
missing; (d) a few sherds of Windmill Hill pottery. It was
concluded that the monument had been a stone-chambered tomb
typologically similar to West Kennet. (8)
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