Gallowsclough Cob bowl barrow

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1011121
Date first listed:: 10-Jan-1962

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:: 1011121
Date first listed:: 10-Jan-1962
Date of most recent amendment:: 01-Sep-1993

Location

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

District:: Cheshire West and Chester (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Delamere and Oakmere
National Grid Reference:: SJ 57001 71350

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 a combination of limited excavation and spreading of the monument by ploughing, Gallowsclough Cob bowl barrow survives reasonably well. This excavation located human remains, and further evidence of interments will exist within the mound and upon the old landsurface beneath.

Details

The monument is Gallowsclough Cob bowl barrow. It is located on a local high point and includes an oval-shaped earthen mound up to 0.8m high with maximum dimensions of 30m by 23m. Limited excavation in 1960 found the barrow to be kerbed with turf. This excavation located the primary cremation burial of a young adult approximately 2m south-south-west of the barrow's centre, and an incomplete secondary burial consisting of various parts of an adult skeleton near the top of the barrow.

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:: 22594
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Forde-Jonston, , 'Trans Lancs & Chesh Antiq Soc' in , , Vol. 70, (1960), 74-83
Ormerod, G, 'History of Cheshire' in History of Cheshire, , Vol. 2, (1882), 2
Other
Darvill,T., MPP Single Monument Class Description - Bowl Barrows, (1988)
Ref No. SJ 57 SE 2, Ordnance Survey, Gallowsclough Cob Round Barrow With Primary & Secondary Burials, (1976)

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.