Reasons for Designation
A small number of areas in southern England appear to have acted as foci for
ceremonial and ritual activity during the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods.
Two of the best known and earliest recognised areas are around Avebury and
Stonehenge, now jointly designated as a World Heritage Site.
The area of chalk downland which surrounds Stonehenge contains one of the
densest and most varied groups of Neolithic and Bronze Age field monuments in
Britain. Included within the area are Stonehenge itself, the Stonehenge
cursus, the Durrington Walls henge, and a variety of burial monuments, many
grouped into cemeteries.
The area has been the subject of archaeological research since the 18th
century when Stukeley recorded many of the monuments and partially excavated a
number of the burial mounds. More recently, the collection of artefacts from
the surfaces of ploughed fields has supplemented the evidence for ritual and
burial by revealing the intensity of contemporary settlement and land-use.
In view of the importance of the area, all ceremonial and sepulchral monuments
of this period which retain significant archaeological remains are identified
as nationally important. 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, normally 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 variety of burial practices. There are over
10,000 surviving bowl barrows recorded nationally and at least 320 in the
Stonehenge area. This group of monuments will provide important information
on the development of this area during the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age
periods.
Details
The monument includes three bowl barrows situated 120m south of Fargo Road on
Durrington Down. The barrows are difficult to identify on the ground being
located in an area formerly disturbed by the construction of military
buildings and more recently by cultivation. They are, however, represented on
the County Series Ordnance Survey 6" map of 1887 and from this the mound of
the western barrow is calculated to be c.10m and the mound of the eastern
barrow c.15m. These barrows appear to have been confluent. An early
archaeological report suggests that the third barrow located 8m north of these
is of a similar size to the western barrow. Surrounding all three mounds are
ditches from which material was quarried during their construction. These have
become infilled over the years but survive as buried features c.1m wide in the
case of the western barrow giving an overall diameter of c.12m, and c.1.5m
wide in the case of the eastern and northern barrows, giving overall diameters
of c.18m. Two of the barrows were partially excavated in the 19th century when
burnt bones were produced.
The south eastern edge of the easternmost bowl barrow has been destroyed by
the construction of a brick wall which surrounds the farm buildings and is
therefore not included in the scheduling.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System number:
10240
Legacy System:
RSM
Sources
Books and journals
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.
End of official list entry
