Bowl barrow, 540m west of Brimble Pit Pool

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

Overview

The earthwork and buried remains of a bowl barrow situated approximately 540m west of Brimble Pit Pool. It is one of a group of three barrows. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1415589
Date first listed:: 21-Aug-2013

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Also of interest

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1415589
Date first listed:: 21-Aug-2013
Location Description:: The barrow is centred on NGR ST 50257 50847.

Location

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

District:: Somerset (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Westbury
National Grid Reference:: ST5025750847

Summary

The earthwork and buried remains of a bowl barrow situated approximately 540m west of Brimble Pit Pool. It is one of a group of three barrows.

Reasons for Designation

The bowl barrow 540m west of Brimple Pit Pool is scheduled for the following principal reasons:

* Survival: a good example of a Bronze Age bowl barrow that survives well in the form of earthworks and buried archaeological features; * Group value: it forms a group with two other barrows; * Potential: it will contribute to our understanding of the social organisation and burial practices of the country's Bronze Age population.

History

The main period of round barrow construction occurred in the Early Bronze Age between about 2200-1500 BC (a period when cremation succeeded inhumation as the primary burial rite), although Neolithic examples are known from as early as 3000 BC. These funerary monuments were constructed as earthen mounds, sometimes ditched, which covered single or multiple burials. They occur either in isolation or grouped as cemeteries and often acted as a focus of burials in later periods.

The bowl barrow (ST 50257 50847) approximately 540m west of Brimble Pit Pool and 190m north-east of the bell barrow known as Westbury Beacon is depicted as a tumulus on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1885. E K Tratman (1923-5) noted 'a disturbed flat area on top' of the mound, possibly the result of an unrecorded previous excavation.

Details

Principal elements A bowl barrow which dates from the Late Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age and is situated on a south-facing Mendip escarpment.

Description It survives as a sub-circular earthwork surrounded by a buried quarry ditch, some 2m wide, from which the construction material was derived. Its mound measures approximately 22m in diameter and 2m high and contains a central depression, possibly an excavation hollow.

Extent of scheduling The scheduling boundary around the bowl barrow includes a 2m margin for the support and protection of the monument.

Sources

Websites
Fieldwork, accessed from http://www.ubss.org.uk/resources/proceedings/vol2/UBSS_Proc_2_3_274-297.pdf

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.