Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

National Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

Our expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Crowds flock around the Skylon and Dome of Discovery at the Festival of Britain South Bank Site on 12 May 1951. Both structures were dismantled at the end of the Festival in 1952. Photographer: Aerofilms Ltd, Image reference: Source: Historic England Archive EAW035702
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

Slatepits Copse long barrow, 1km SE of High Lodge in Wychwood Forest

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1011217
Date first listed:: 22-Mar-1949

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.

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:: 1011217
Date first listed:: 22-Mar-1949
Date of most recent amendment:: 11-Oct-1993

Location

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

County:: Oxfordshire
District:: West Oxfordshire (District Authority)
Parish:: Cornbury and Wychwood
National Grid Reference:: SP 32902 16515

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.

Despite having been partially disturbed by excavation, the long barrow 1km south-east of High Lodge survives well and will contain archaeological and environmental evidence relating to its construction and the landscape in which it was built.

Details

The monument includes a chambered long barrow situated 1km south-east of High Lodge in Wychwood Forest. The barrow is orientated east-west and occupies a false crest, part way down a steep south-facing slope which looks across a narrow valley. It is located 400m south-west of the Churchill Copse long barrow. Despite having suffered some disturbance, the barrow survives as an earthwork 27.6m long and up to 2m high; it is 19m across at its eastern end and 14m wide at its western end. The eastern facade, which forms the front of the barrow, has at its centre a 1.5m wide stone-lined passage leading c.4m into the mound. Although the roof of this passage is no longer present and the rear wall has collapsed forward, some of the monolithic slabs used to construct the passage remain in place. These measure up to 3m across and 0.3m thick. Beyond this passage is a disturbed area c.2m across and 0.3m deep which appears to represent either collapse of the passage roof or partial excavation of the mound. A further area of subsidence 2.3m wide runs south from this disturbance to the edge of the mound and appears to be a back-filled excavation trench. Parallel to the mound and c.6.6m out from either edge are two flanking quarry ditches from which material was obtained during the construction of the mound. These have become largely infilled over the years although the southern ditch is visible as a shallow depression c.6.6m wide and 28m long. The northern ditch survives as a buried feature. To the east of the barrow mound is a level area 5.4m wide which represents the forecourt where the dead were brought prior to burial. This area appears as a level platform, its eastern edge marked by a return to the natural slope of the hill.

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:: 21769
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Other
REF:O.G.S CRAWFORD 1922 as does AM107, C.A.O., Slatepits Copse Long Barrow,
Title: Ordnance Survey 6" Source Date: 1930 Author: Publisher: Surveyor:

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.