Bowl barrow 400m north of Starveall Farm

Summary

A Bronze Age bowl barrow (burial mound) surviving as a circular earthwork up to 16m in diameter and about 1.6m in height, surrounded by a buried quarry ditch, from which the material for its construction would have been derived. It survives well and will contain archaeological and environmental evidence relating to its construction, longevity, territorial significance, social organisation, funerary and ritual practices and overall landscape context.

Reasons for Designation

The prehistoric bowl barrow about 400m north of Starveall Farm is scheduled for the following principal reasons:

* Survival: as a well-preserved earthwork representing the diversity of burial practices, beliefs and social organisation amongst early prehistoric communities;

* Potential: for the stratified deposits which will retain information on the individuals buried within and, as part of a wider multi-period landscape, will also contribute to our understanding of the continuity and change in the use of this landscape since the Bronze Age;

* Group value: the barrow is located in an area that has a concentration of prehistoric monuments and it has a strong spatial relationship with other scheduled monuments including further round barrows and long barrows.

History

The treatment, burial and commemoration of the dead have been a distinctive part of human life for millennia, and these activities have often left physical remains. The remains of the dead have been dealt with in remarkably varied ways in the past and it appears that, in the prehistoric period especially, only a small proportion of the population received a burial which has left traces detectable using current methods.

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, sometimes 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 diversity of burial practices. Often occupying prominent locations, they are a major historic element in the modern landscape and their considerable variation of form and longevity as a monument type provide important information on the diversity of beliefs and social organisations amongst early prehistoric communities. They are particularly representative of their period.

The bowl barrow about 400m north of Starveall Farm stands on the west side of the A46 and north of Starveall Lane. The barrow is marked as the site of a trig point on Ordnance Survey maps from the late C19 and early C20. It was first scheduled in 1949. The monument has not been subject to any archaeological investigation.

Details

A bowl barrow, probably of Bronze Age date.

PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS
The monument includes the earthwork and buried remains of a bowl barrow situated just below an upland ridge, which forms part of the Jurassic Way, a corridor for traffic between Yorkshire and Somerset, established from at least the Early Bronze Age.

DESCRIPTION
The monument stands on a band of clay soil. It survives as a circular, turf-covered earthwork up to 16m in diameter and about 1.6m in height. Although there is no visible evidence for a surrounding ditch from which the construction material was derived, it is considered to survive as a buried feature. The barrow overlooks the head of a valley of a tributary of the Little River Avon.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

SG 41

Legacy System:

RSM - OCN

Sources

Books and journals
Witts, G B, Archaeology Handbook for Gloucestershire, (1883), 102
O'Neil, H, Grinsell, LV, Gloucestershire Barrows, Lists: Round Barrows, Gloucestershire in Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, Vol. 79, (1960), 117

Other
South Gloucestershire Historic Environment Record 2080: Starveall Round Barrow, Bangel Wood, Hawkesbury

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.