The Fairy Toot is an extensive oval
barrow in the
civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...
of
Nempnett Thrubwell,
Somerset
Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...
, England ().
It is an example of the
Severn-Cotswold tomb type which consist of precisely-built, long
trapezoid
In geometry, a trapezoid () in North American English, or trapezium () in British English, is a quadrilateral that has at least one pair of parallel sides.
The parallel sides are called the ''bases'' of the trapezoid. The other two sides are ...
earth mounds covering a burial chamber. Because of this they are a type of
chambered long barrow.
Fairy Toot was formerly a
chambered cairn
A chambered cairn is a burial monument, usually constructed during the Neolithic, consisting of a sizeable (usually stone) chamber around and over which a cairn of stones was constructed. Some chambered cairns are also passage-graves. They are fo ...
which is a
Scheduled Ancient Monument
In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change.
The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...
. Located south-southwest of Howgrove Farm, it is a mound 60 m long, 25 m wide and now 2.5 m high, retained by a stone wall. Its summit is covered with ash trees and shrubs. Formerly it was considerably higher.
On being opened and essentially destroyed between 1787 and 1835 by the Reverend Thomas Bere of
Butcombe and the Reverend
John Skinner of
Camerton, it was found to contain two rows of cells, running from south to north, formed by immense stones set edgeways, and covered by others of larger dimensions. A human skull from the barrow is now in the
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.
At the time it was conjectured to be a work of the
Druid
A druid was a member of the high-ranking priestly class in ancient Celtic cultures. The druids were religious leaders as well as legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors. Druids left no wr ...
s, but its origins are far older and probably date from the Neolithic period.
Wade and Wade in their 1929 book "Somerset" described it as "''a remarkably fine tumulus of masonry, said to have been one of the finest in Britain, in the chambers of which skeletons have been discovered. A few vestiges of it now only remain, the rest has been used as a lime-kiln.''"
The site was visited in the past as it was known as a place for curing
warts.
References
*
External links
Nempnett Thrubwell Long Barrow– The Modern Antiquarian
{{Chew Valley
Bronze Age sites in Somerset
Buildings and structures in Bath and North East Somerset
History of Somerset
Megalithic monuments in England
Tourist attractions in Somerset
Scheduled monuments in North Somerset
Archaeological sites in Somerset
Barrows in the United Kingdom