The Hereford Council Archaeological Service suggests the Wormelow tumulus was destroyed in 1896* because of road widening*. However, a local who had lived in the area all his life suggested a photo on the wall of the local pub (See Visit Details) shows the tump, suggesting the tumulus was extant in the 1930's. Frith Photos have a photo showing the same area and feature from the 1960s. It is far from clear where the tump might have been positioned, so it is hard to judge whether the walled area on the photos is enclosing the mound, a mound, or just a hump of bushes.
Even if it was destroyed in 1896, the tump's position should still be recorded on the earliest maps of the area. Broadly, the form of the village is a northern crossroads (almost a roundabout) and a southern fork, with a short stretch of road between. The pub is on the east side of the crossroads (Map). Isaac Taylor's 1754 Map of Herefordshire shows the tump in the north-western corner of the crossroads opposite the pub*. This slightly contradicts the recollection of a local farmer queried in the pub, who said he'd asked an old villager where it had been in the 1970s when he moved to the village, and they'd told him it was in a field opposite the pub - which would suggest the west. It more strong disagrees with the photo, which shows the area directly south of the pub.
The Wormelow Tump Inn itself is marked on Smith's "New Map of the United Kingdom" (1806), but not the tump itself. The one inch to a mile O.S. map published in 1831 shows what might be a tumulus near the current pub location - the symbol used is ambiguous, however there is certainly a house shown to the north-north-west of the pub crossroads, which throws doubt on Taylor's map. Either way the 1831 map doesn't label the feature as a tumulus as it does, for example, for the tump in nearby St.Weonards. Maps between 1831 and 1896 are ambigious, in that it is hard to distinguish features near and forming the pub. For example the 1st Edition OS 1:2500/6 inch:mile County Series map, which would have been surveyed prior to 1888*, shows an round-ended rectangle in the location shown by the photograph, but with no indication of what it might be, and there is a strong possibility it is simply the loose end of a long-s symbol which is used elsewhere in the locality. The clearest indication that the tumulus is in the location shown on the photo is from the 1st Edition O.S. 1:10560 County Series, again surveyed prior to 1888, which simply has a black disk marking the spot. The revisions of these maps up to the 1922-1969 series show neither road widening or any movement in the black circle. At the 1:2500 scale the County Series shows no change up to the 1st Revision (1893-1915), there is then a gap in the mapping until the National Grid survey (1943-) which shows the road widened and the current petrol station. However, none of these maps mark on the black disk shown at 1:10560.
To add to the confusion, the owner of a local Bed and Breakfast suggested the tump was the wooded hill to the west of the crossroads, a fact that matches the pub sign which seems to indicate a natural feature (See Visit Details), thereby according with the local use of the word "tump" to describe "Cole's Tump", which is natural. The owner of the B&B recalled a local saying that they had gone up the tump in the woods with Violette Szabo (Info) and her Aunt (though Cole's Tump would not be a huge walk and would be in the same direction).
In addition, within Wormelow itself, the area of the meeting place may be preserved by the village form. This can be most clearly seen on the 1st Edition OS 1:2500 map of the area (sketch). This shows an unusual circular area encompassing the current road junction and suggesting a large meeting place centred on the crossroads. The antiquity of this form is not clear, though it is at least as old as the 1880's and remains pretty much intact today - though you'd be hard-pressed to realise this on the ground. The best indication is the old manor wall to the west of the crossroads (Visit Details). Geometrically it would make sense for the tump to be in the centre of this ring, placing it just into the main road. However, from a communication point of view it makes sense if it is located in the north of the circle in the position noted by Taylor, if one wishes for the speaker to be illuminated at noon (rather than the audience blinded) or west or east (by the pub) if one wants dramatic lighting effects in the morning or evening. The circle is actually slightly elliptical (45.5m N-S; 40m E-W) with an area of ~5720m2. For a slow moving crowd a "safe" limit is 4 people m2 and staticly a comfortable limit is likely to be less than this*. This suggests a maximum capacity of ~1430 people, if the circle does mark out a meeting place.
Interestingly the form of the circle and the north-eastern and southern roads might suggest three interlocking rings centred adjacent to the form in the photograph, however this seems unlikely to be anything other than chance as 1) this would probably be a unique example of this geometry being used in this way in Britain, and 2) the curve of the north-eastern road may equally reflect the optimum bend for horses-carriages at speed and represent a slow attraction of disjunct roads to the crossroads under increasingly rapid traffic.