Bowl barrow 320m west of Ober House

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1009888
Date first listed:: 08-Apr-1992

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Location

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1009888
Date first listed:: 08-Apr-1992

Location

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

County:: Hampshire
District:: New Forest (District Authority)
Parish:: Brockenhurst
National Park:: NEW FOREST
National Grid Reference:: SU 28178 02531

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 partial excavation and recent disturbance caused by animal burrowing the bowl barrow 320m west of Ober House survives comparatively well in the New Forest, an area known to have been important in terms of lowland Bronze Age occupation. A considerable amount of archaeological evidence has survived in this area because of a lack of agricultural activity, the result of later climatic deterioration, development of heath and the establishment of a Royal Forest.

Details

This monument includes a bowl barrow situated on grassland overlooking Brockenhurst village. The barrow mound measures 15m in diameter and stands up to 1.1m high. A number of small hollows in the top of the mound suggest previous partial excavation. Surrounding the mound is a ditch from which material was quarried during the construction of the monument. This has become partly infilled over the years but survives as a slight earthwork 1.4m wide and 0.05m deep. On the southern external edge of this ditch is a bank measuring 1.5m wide and 0.1m high.

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:: 20287
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Other
Darvill, T, Monument Class Description - Bowl barrows, 1988,
Hampshire County Planning Department, SU20SE22,

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.