Bowl barrow in Swinley Park 390m south-east of Bracknell Bridge.

Overview

Heritage Category: Scheduled Monument

List Entry Number: 1007944

Date first listed: 19-Aug-1992

Location

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

National Grid Reference: SU 89106 67551

Summary

Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.

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. There are over 10,000 surviving bowl barrows recorded nationally (many more have already been destroyed), occurring across most of lowland Britain. 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 and a substantial proportion of surviving examples are considered worthy of protection.

The Swinley Park barrow survives well with no evidence for disturbance of the mound or the surrounding ditch, though this is overlain in its western quadrant by the line of a fire break. As such it is a good example of its class, and has potential for the recovery of archaeological remains and environmental evidence relating to the landscape in which the monument was constructed.

History

Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.

Details

The monument includes a well preserved bowl barrow situated on the edge of a north facing ridge of high ground. The barrow mound is flat topped, has a diameter of 24m and stands to a height of 1.6m, the top of the mound being slightly hollowed. Surrounding the mound are traces of a ditch from which material was quarried during the construction of the monument. This survives as a shallow earthwork 3.5m wide and 0.2m deep around the north, south and eastern sides of the mound but is obscured in the western quadrant by the line of a fire break.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number: 19023

Legacy System: RSM

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.