The mix-up is understandable. A circular bank with an outer ditch, built from soil and stone, does bear a passing resemblance to a Bronze Age barrow. It was duly classified as one when it entered the Record of Monuments and Places in 1995. But the geometry here belongs to a different tradition entirely, one of landscape gardening rather than burial rite.

A tree-ring is a low circular earthwork constructed to shelter and support a single ornamental tree, or sometimes a small cluster of trees, within a designed landscape. The bank and ditch combination would have protected the planting from grazing animals while also giving the feature a degree of formal definition within the grounds. The house in question appears on the 1837 Ordnance Survey map under the name Sea View, sitting at the end of a laneway from the main road. By that date, the five circular features had not yet been mapped, though trees were already shown in the field to the north of the house. When the OS returned for the 1913 edition of their six-inch map, all five circles were recorded. The best preserved of the group measures 7.3 metres in diameter, with a bank that varies in height between 0.2 and 0.9 metres depending on whether you are measuring from inside or out. Some stones are still visible in the outer face of the bank, and the interior slopes gently downward from west to east.