Bowl barrow 1000m SSE of Belhuish Farm: one of a group of barrows to the west of Burngate Wood

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1008222
Date first listed:: 10-May-1963

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

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

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

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:: 1008222
Date first listed:: 10-May-1963
Date of most recent amendment:: 21-Sep-1994

Location

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

District:: Dorset (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: West Lulworth
National Grid Reference:: SY 83184 82034

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 having been reduced in height over the years due to cultivation, the bowl barrow to the west of Burngate Wood survives comparatively well and contains archaeological remains and environmental evidence relating to the monument and the landscape in which it was constructed. This barrow is one of a number which survive on the chalk and heathland between the River Frome and the Dorset coast.

Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow situated on chalk downland behind the hills of the Dorset coast. The barrow mound measures 16m north-south and 12m east-west, and is 0.5m high. Surrounding the mound is a ditch from which material was quarried during its construction. This has become infilled over the years and can no longer be seen at ground level. It does however survive as a buried feature c.4m wide. The field bank and the post and wire fence which cross the barrow are excluded from the scheduling, but the ground beneath 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:: 21950
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Other
Dorset C. C., NMR record in Dorset CC SMR,

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.