Priddy Nine Barrows and Ashen Hill Barrow Cemeteries

The field where the monuments are located is south of the Priddy Circles, a linear arrangement of four circular earthwork enclosures described as 'probable Neolithic ritual or ceremonial monuments similar to a henge'. It is approximately east of the village of Priddy itself and west of Stock Hill a Forestry Commission plantation. Between the barrows and Stock Hill is the Priddy Mineries, a nature reserve of the Somerset Wildlife Trust, which is itself a part of the Priddy Pools Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) which was worked for lead for many centuries. The cemeteries sit on the two highest ridges in the area with Priddy Nine Barrows being above sea level and Ashen Hill at . ==Description==

Ashen Hill Ashen Hill Barrow Cemetery is the most northerly of the sites and consists of six bowl barrows and two bell barrows aligned east to west, ==Excavations and investigations==

In 1815 John Skinner carried out a partial excavation and identified cremation burials in an oval cyst which was covered by a flat stone just below where ground level would have been in the Bronze Age. At least one of the Ashen Hill Barrows was excavated by a team led by Herbert E. Balch in 1894. They were scheduled as ancient monuments in 1933, possibly to stop excavation by the University of Bristol Spelæological Society and local schools. A geophysical magnetometry survey investigated the area between the existing seven and the outliers which make up Priddy Nine Barrows suggesting that there may have been three further barrows, however the work was inconclusive. The result suggested a ring ditch and some other disturbances by any further barrows could have been disturbed by lead mining. ==References==