Colnpen round barrows

Overview

Heritage Category: Scheduled Monument

List Entry Number: 1003352

Date first listed: 14-Jan-1949

Location

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

National Grid Reference: SP 06844 08341, SP 06865 08546

Summary

Four bowl barrows 450m north west of Colnpen Barn.

Reasons for Designation

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.

Despite reduction in the heights of the mounds through past cultivation the four bowl barrows 450m north west of Colnpen Barn survive comparatively well and will contain archaeological and environmental evidence relating to their construction, relative chronologies, territorial significance, social organisation, ritual and funerary practices and overall landscape context.

Details

This record was the subject of a minor enhancement on 24 September 2015. The record has been generated from an "old county number" (OCN) scheduling record. These are monuments that were not reviewed under the Monuments Protection Programme and are some of our oldest designation records.

The monument, which falls into two separate areas of protection, includes four bowl barrows situated on the eastern side of a valley of a tributary to the River Coln. The barrows are arranged as a group of three aligned roughly south west to north east with a single outlier to the south. They survive as circular mounds surrounded by buried quarry ditches from which the construction material was derived. The barrow mounds range in size from 12m up to 15m in diameter and from 0.2m up to 0.8m high.

Further archaeological remains in the immediate vicinity are the subject of separate schedulings.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number: GC 242

Legacy System: RSM - OCN

Sources

Other
PastScape 327154 and 327148

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 Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.