Cow Green long barrow

Reasons for Designation

Long barrows were constructed as earthen or drystone mounds with flanking ditches and acted as funerary monuments during the Early and Middle Neolithic periods (3400-2400 BC). They represent the burial places of Britain's early farming communities and, as such, are amongst the oldest field monuments surviving visibly in the present landscape. Where investigated, long barrows appear to have been used for communal burial, often with only parts of the human remains having been selected for interment. Certain sites provide evidence for several phases of funerary monument preceding the barrow and, consequently, it is probable that long barrows acted as important ritual sites for local communities over a considerable period of time. Some 500 long barrows are recorded in England. As one of the few types of Neolithic structure to survive as earthworks, and due to their comparative rarity, their considerable age and their longevity as a monument type, all long barrows are considered to be nationally important.

Cow Green long barrow survives well and remains unexcavated. The monument is one of only 20 long barrows recorded in Cumbria and as such it lies outside the distinct regional groupings of these monuments found in the Cotswolds, the downlands of Wessex, and the Wolds of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. It will contain undisturbed archaeological deposits within the mound and upon the old landsurface beneath it.

Details

The monument is Cow Green long barrow. It is located on a gently sloping north-east facing hillside immediately above the steep-sided valley of the Lyvennet Beck. The monument includes an earth and stone mound up to 33m long orientated ENE-WSW. It is up to 2m high and 16m wide at the eastern end but reduces in both width and height towards the western end where it measures up to 1m high and 7m wide. The monument is not known to have been excavated.

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:

22468

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Other
Darvill, T, MPP Single Monument Class Descriptions - Long Barrows, (1988)

End of official list entry

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