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The Landscape context of Holworthy Farm: Chapman Barrows, Hazel Parker ( Newsletter No 9 2005)
We must always be aware that the site on which we are currently focusing, the Holworthy Farm hillslope enclosure, belongs within a wider landscape context. Now we are confident that this is a Bronze Age site, belonging to the second millennium BC, we must look at it as part of the Bronze Age landscape. Locally this is dominated by the barrow cemetery known as Chapman Barrows situated on the ridge to the south.
Hazel Parker, who is currently studying Archaeology through Exeter University’s Department of Lifelong Learning, has had a few thoughts on the subject.
I have recently been looking at the Chapman barrow group on Exmoor hoping to understand the landscape in which they were constructed. For an Exmoor barrow cemetery, the Chapman barrows are unusual, being set out in a line rather than scattered. The largest of the barrows occupy the highest ground, which may be significant in many ways. To build them, to visit them and to travel through the group would have demanded a great deal of effort, suggesting a communal purpose. The linear layout may be significant because the complete cemetery can only be viewed from a great distance, while on the ground, especially if approached from the west, the barrows reveal themselves one by one. Constructed to be seen in sequence, rather than concurrently, they may represent in space, a story which was revealed as each barrow on the ritual ground was passed.
To the south-east are the Longstone and the Challacombe group of barrows. Although only one other of the Chapman barrows can be seen from the the barrow at NGR SS700435, the highest point of the group, the Longstone can be viewed from here as can the Longstone barrow on the horizon to the south-east. This intervisibility may indicate that the Challacombe group was important to the function of the ritual ground of Chapman Barrows.
Apart from the the linear Chapman group, there are other barrows nearby such as Roe Barrow at NGR SS697444. This separation may indicate a division within Bronze Age society, as may also the actual design of the barrows. Although all of the barrows are round barrows, a number of them appear to be bowl barrows, whereas others are lower rimmed platform or ring bank barrows. It is interesting to note that these are mixed in with each other, perhaps signifying that the difference was not the product of a change in style through a period of time, but a preference.
The importance of these monuments is illustrated by their location on some of the highest ground on Exmoor, with (apparently) contemporary settlements around them such as that at South Common from which the Chapman barrows can be seen on the horizon (and the Holworthy site from which the Holwell barrow at NGR SS673430 is visible, Ed.) This may indicate that the Chapman barrows were built on part of the South Common settlements’ land, and that they were to be viewed from there. If this was the case then the other barrows in the area may also have been a focal point for their builders, raising the question of the number of and location of other settlements in the area, now destroyed by farming. Under the right conditions, aerial photography may reveal features representing other barrows or other settlements. I believe that more investigation is needed.
Copyright © 2007 North Devon Archaeological Society