Bowl barrow 1200m south west of Redhouse Farm: part of a barrow cemetery on Levington Heath

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1011344
Date first listed:: 26-May-1960

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1011344
Date first listed:: 26-May-1960
Date of most recent amendment:: 22-Nov-1993

Location

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

County:: Suffolk
District:: East Suffolk (District Authority)
Parish:: Levington
National Grid Reference:: TM 24226 40534

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.

The barrow 1200m south west of Redhouse Farm is one of the visible components of a round barrow cemetery. Most such 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 different types of round barrow and, wherever large scale investigation has been undertaken, revealing contemporary or later `flat' burials between the barrow mounds. Although the barrow mound has been levelled, excavations in the same region of Suffolk have shown that such sites retain important archaeological information, and this will have additional significance in relation to the cemetery as a whole. Evidence concerning the manner and period of use of the barrow and also the local environment, at and prior to that time, will be contained in the soils preserved beneath the barrow mound. The Levington heath barrow cemetery is part of a larger group of round barrows and circular ditched enclosures which extend in a line to the north west, over a distance of 3km, to Seven Hills, Nacton. The parish boundary between Levington and Nacton, to the south, and Bucklesham and Foxhall, to the north, follows the same line, showing a relationship which is of particular interest for the study of the prehistoric and medieval landscape history of the area.

Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow within Levington Heath barrow cemetery, situated on level ground 70m south of the parish boundary between Levington and Bucklesham, which lies to the north. The barrow was visible as an earthen mound which was recorded in 1959, when already under cultivation, as standing to a height of 0.6m and covering a circular area 22m in diameter. Since then it has been reduced by ploughing, but the area is clearly defined and marked by a circular,light coloured, sandy patch measuring approximately 16m in diameter in the ploughsoil.

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:: 21293
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Other
AM7, (1959)
Suffolk SMR ACQ 30, 31,

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.