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Three bowl barrows 40m north of The Cursus

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1009066
Date first listed:: 24-Mar-1995

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1009066
Date first listed:: 24-Mar-1995

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Wiltshire (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Durrington
National Grid Reference:: SU 13315 43258

Reasons for Designation

A small number of areas in southern England appear to have acted as foci for ceremonial and ritual activity during the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods. Two of the best known and earliest recognised areas are around Avebury and Stonehenge, now jointly designated as a World Heritage Site. The area of chalk downland which surrounds Stonehenge contains one of the densest and most varied groups of Neolithic and Bronze Age field monuments in Britain. Included within the area are Stonehenge itself, the Stonehenge cursus, the Durrington Walls henge, and a variety of burial monuments, many grouped into cemeteries. The area has been the subject of archaeological research since the 18th century when Stukeley recorded many of the monuments and partially excavated a number of the burial mounds. More recently, the collection of artefacts from the surfaces of ploughed fields has supplemented the evidence for ritual and burial by revealing the intensity of contemporary settlement and land-use. In view of the importance of the area, all ceremonial and sepulchral monuments of this period which retain significant archaeological remains are identified as nationally important. Bowl barrows, the most numerous form of round barrow, are funerary monuments dating from the Late Neolithic period to the Late Bronze Age, with most examples belonging to the period 2400-1500 BC. They were constructed as earthen or rubble mounds, normally ditched, which covered single or multiple burials. They occur either in isolation or grouped as cemeteries and often acted as a focus for burials in later periods. Often superficially similar, although differing widely in size, they exhibit regional variations in form and a variety of burial practices. There are over 10,000 surviving bowl barrows recorded nationally and at least 320 in the Stonehenge area. This group of monuments will provide important information on the development of this area during the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age periods.

The three bowl barrows 40m north of the Cursus are known from partial excavation to contain archaeological remains and environmental evidence relating to the monument and the landscape in which it was constructed. They are also of interest in that they lie in such close proximity to the Cursus.

Details

The monument includes three bowl barrows aligned broadly east-west and situated 40m north of the Cursus toward its eastern end. The mound of the western barrow is 1.3m high and 18m in diameter. The central and eastern barrows are now difficult to define on the ground. However, they are represented on the County Series Ordnance Survey 6" map of 1887 from which the mounds have been calculated to be 10m across in the case of the central barrow and 12m across in the case of the eastern barrow. Surrounding all three barrow mounds are ditches from which material was quarried during their construction. These have become infilled over the years but survive as buried features of c.2m wide, c.1m wide and c.1.5m wide respectively, giving the barrows overall diameters of c.22m, c.12m and c.15m. All three barrows were partially excavated in the 19th century and all three contained primary cremations.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 10245
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Grinsell, LV, The Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume V, (1957), 172
Grinsell, LV, The Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume V, (1957), 172
Grinsell, LV, The Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume V, (1957), 172
Hoare, R C, Ancient History of Wiltshire, (1812), 169
Hoare, R C, Ancient History of Wiltshire, (1812), 169
Hoare, R C, Ancient History of Wiltshire, (1812), 169

Legal

This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.