Earl's Hill bowl barrow: part of the round barrow cemetery on Therfield Heath

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1010426
Date first listed:: 10-Aug-1923

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1010426
Date first listed:: 10-Aug-1923
Date of most recent amendment:: 16-Jul-1992

Location

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

County:: Hertfordshire
District:: North Hertfordshire (District Authority)
Parish:: Therfield
National Grid Reference:: TL 34448 40329

Reasons for Designation

Round barrow cemeteries date to the Bronze Age (c.2000-700 BC). They comprise closely-spaced groups of up to 30 round barrows - rubble or earthen mounds covering single or multiple burials. Most cemeteries developed over a considerable period of time, often many centuries, and in some cases acted as a focus for burials as late as the early medieval period. They exhibit considerable diversity of burial rite, plan and form, frequently including several different types of round barrow, occasionally associated with earlier long barrows. Where large scale investigation has been undertaken around them, contemporary or later "flat" burials between the barrow mounds have often been revealed. Round barrow cemeteries occur across most of lowland Britain, with a marked concentration in Wessex. In some cases, they are clustered around other important contemporary monuments such as henges. Often occupying prominent locations, they are a major historic element in the modern landscape, whilst their diversity and their longevity as a monument type provide important information on the variety of beliefs and social organisation amongst early prehistoric communities. They are particularly representative of their period and a substantial proportion of surviving or partly-surviving examples are considered worthy of protection.

The round barrow cemetery on Therfield Heath is the largest known example of its type in Hertfordshire. Despite partial excavation, this distant outlier is a well-preserved component of the cemetery and retains potential for the recovery of archaeological remains and environmental evidence relating to the monument and the landscape in which it was constructed.

Details

Earl's Hill bowl barrow is situated on Therfield Heath. It is an outlier to a wider round barrow cemetery and is located 300m north-east of a Neolithic long barrow. The monument includes a hemispherical earth mound 26m in diameter and c.2.5m in height. Although no longer visible at ground level, a ditch, from which material was quarried during the construction of the monument, surrounds the barrow mound. This has been infilled over the years but survives as a buried feature c.2m wide. The barrow was partly excavated in 1855 by E B Nunn, although no details are known.

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:: 20630
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Other
NAR No TL 63 SE 9, Information from NAR,

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.