A bowl barrow on Birdsall Brow, 600m north-east of Toisland Farm

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1007533
Date first listed:: 11-Nov-1966

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1007533
Date first listed:: 11-Nov-1966
Date of most recent amendment:: 19-Jan-1994

Location

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

District:: North Yorkshire (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Birdsall
National Grid Reference:: SE 83586 63733

Reasons for Designation

Cross-dykes are substantial linear earthworks typically between 0.2km and 1km long and comprising one or more ditches arranged beside and parallel to one or more banks. They generally occur in upland situations, running across ridges and spurs. They are recognised as earthworks or as cropmarks on aerial photographs, or as combinations of both. The evidence of excavation and analogy with associated monuments demonstrates that their construction spans the millennium from the Middle Bronze Age, although they may have been re-used later. Current information favours the view that they were used as territorial boundary markers, probably demarcating land allotment within communities, although they may also have been used as trackways, cattle droveways or defensive earthworks. Cross-dykes are one of the few monument types which illustrate how land was divided up in the prehistoric period. They are of considerable importance for any analysis of settlement and land use in the Bronze Age. Very few have survived to the present day and hence all well- preserved examples are considered to be of national importance.

Although partially excavated in the 19th century and damaged by a landslip, the barrow is well preserved and about two thirds of the structure of the mound, the underlying ground surface and further burials will survive. The monument is one of the best preserved of a closely associated group of barrows which have further associations with broadly contemporary boundary earthworks in the vicinity of Birdsall Wold. Similar groups of monuments are also known from the southern edge of the North York Moors. Such associations between monuments offer important scope for the study of the division of land for social, ritual and agricultural purposes in different geographical areas during the prehistoric period.

Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow situated on uncultivated land at the crest of Birdsall Brow and is one of a number of prehistoric monuments on Birdsall Wold. Despite damage at one time in the past due to a landslip on its north side, the barrow is about two thirds complete and is visible as a well-defined mound 2m high and 10m across. Although it has become infilled over the years and is no longer visible, a ditch from which material was quarried for the construction of the mound surrounds the barrow on its intact south side; the ditch is estimated to be 3m wide. The barrow was recorded and partially excavated by J R Mortimer in 1866. A central grave containing at least three burials was found.

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:: 20515
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Mortimer, J R , Forty Years Researches in British and Saxon Burial Mounds of East Yorkshire, (1905)

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.