Long barrow 400m north-west of Fox Covert

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.

The 180 long barrows of Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset form the densest and one of the most significant concentrations of monuments of this type in the country. The Fox Covert barrow is important as, despite cultivation to the eastern end of the mound, much of the monument survives intact and has potential for the recovery of archaeological remains in addition to environmental evidence relating to the period in which the monument was constructed. The importance of the monument is enhanced by the fact that an additional long barrow survives some 160m to the north-west. Such pairs are rare and give an indication as to the density or length of time during which areas were populated during the Neolithic period.

Details

The monument includes a long barrow set just above the floor of a small valley. The barrow mound is orientated SW-NE, it is trapezoidal in plan and has dimensions of 50m long, 25m wide at the broader NE end and 22m wide at the SW end. The mound varies in height between 2m in the centre and 0.5m at the NE end. Although no longer visible at ground level ditches, from which material was quarried during the construction of the monument, flank the mound to the north and south. These have become infilled over the years but survive as buried features c.3m wide.

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:

12288

Legacy System:

RSM

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