Bowl barrow in Maidenhead Thicket 180m north of Coach and Horses public house.

Overview

Heritage Category: Scheduled Monument

List Entry Number: 1007945

Date first listed: 03-Sep-1992

Location

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

National Grid Reference: SU 85023 80545

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.

Despite disturbance to the surface of the barrow mound, Maidenhead Thicket round barrow survives comparatively well with potential for the recovery of archaeological material and for environmental evidence relating to the landscape in which the monument was constructed.

Details

The monument includes the remains of a bowl barrow situated on a low west facing hillslope. The barrow mound survives as a well defined, flat topped mound, with a diameter of 24.5m and stands to a height of 0.8m. Surrounding the mound is a ditch, from which the material for the mound would have been quarried. This has become infilled over the years but survives as a slight earthwork 2m wide around the north-east quarter of the mound, elsewhere it survives as a buried feature.

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: 19024

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.