Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

See our extensive range of expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

Belas Knap long barrow 600m ESE of Hill Barn Farm

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1008199
Date first listed:: 29-Aug-1922

User submitted image — Uploaded by Paul Adams This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1008199
Date first listed:: 29-Aug-1922
Date of most recent amendment:: 24-Mar-1994

Location

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

County:: Gloucestershire
District:: Tewkesbury (District Authority)
Parish:: Sudeley
County:: Gloucestershire
District:: Tewkesbury (District Authority)
Parish:: Winchcombe
National Grid Reference:: SP 02093 25426

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.

Belas Knap long barrow survives remarkably well and is known from partial excavation to contain archaeological and environmental evidence relating to the monument and the landscape in which it was constructed. This barrow is a well-known and outstanding example representing a group of long barrows commonly referred to as the Cotswold-Severn group, named after the area in which they occur.

Details

The monument includes a chambered long barrow situated just below the crest of a prominent ridge with panoramic views. The barrow, known as the Belas Knap long barrow, has a mound trapezoidal in plan, orientated north-south and defined by a dry-stone revetment wall. The mound is 70m from north-south, 26m wide at the northern end, 17m wide at the southern end and has a maximum height of c.3m. At the northern end of the mound there is a forecourt consisting of a recess flanked by two projections of mound. This is fronted by a `false entrance` consisting of two standing stones and a lintel stone. This entrance was never associated with an internal passage and so could not have provided a physical means of access into the monument. The `false entrance` is instead likely to have been constructed in association with the forecourt in order to provide the visual effect, of an entrance. Four burial chambers have been identified within the mound; these are situated in the south-east, north-east, west and southern areas of the monument. The chambers were roofed with slabs of limestone and defined by dry-stone walling; each was approached separately through an entrance situated in the side of the mound. The monument was partially excavated between 1863-65 and again by W J Hemp in 1928. The `false entrance` was found to cover the remains of six human skeletons including five infants which are thought to represent Early Bronze Age interments. The south-eastern chamber contained the remains of two male and two female human skeletons along with animal bones and flint artefacts. The north-eastern chamber contained 12 inhumations, the western chamber contained 14 inhumations and the southern chamber a single inhumation. In addition, another six or seven interments were recovered from at least one of the chambers by W Ashton between 1870-90. The monument was restored by the Ministry of Works between 1929-31. The mound is flanked on each side by a ditch from which material was quarried during the construction of the monument. These have become infilled over the years, but survive as buried features c.5m wide. There is a Bronze Age bowl barrow 80m to the south-west of the long barrow and the two monuments are intervisible. Excluded from the scheduling are all fence posts and gates relating to the field boundaries, although the ground beneath these features is included.

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:: 22868
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
O`Neil, H E, Grinsell, L V, 'Proc of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Arch Soc' in Gloucestershire Barrows, , Vol. 179, (1960), 88-89
O`Neil, H E, Grinsell, L V, 'Proc of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Arch Soc' in Gloucestershire Barrows, , Vol. 179, (1960), 88-89
O`Neil, H E, Grinsell, L V, 'Proc of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Arch Soc' in Gloucestershire Barrows, , Vol. 179, (1960), 88-89
O`Neil, H E, Grinsell, L V, 'Proc of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Arch Soc' in Gloucestershire Barrows, , Vol. 179, (1960), 88-89

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.