Bowl barrow 250m northeast of King Down Farm

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1011530
Date first listed:: 13-Oct-1937

Barrow mound with man in hi-vis jacket. Grey clouds above. — Uploaded by Andrew Buchanan This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

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:: 1011530
Date first listed:: 13-Oct-1937
Date of most recent amendment:: 17-Aug-1993

Location

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

District:: Somerset (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Priddy
National Grid Reference:: ST 50941 54362

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 bowl barrow 250m northeast of King Down Farm survives comparatively well, despite some surface disturbance through the planting of trees on the barrow mound and erection of a plaque in 1937. It contains archaeological and environmental evidence relating both to the monument and the landscape in which it was constructed. The monument survives in an area which contains a concentration of contemporary burial monuments, thus giving an indication of the nature and scale of human occupation during the Bronze Age period.

Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow located on sloping ground 250m northeast of King Down Farm. It is visible as a mound 21m in diameter and c.2.5m high at its highest point. 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 become infilled over the years but survives as a buried feature c.3m wide. The barrow mound was planted with trees on 12th May 1937 and a plaque erected in honour of the coronation of King George VI. The plaque has since been removed.

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:: 13929
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Grinsell, L, 'Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeology and Natural Hist Soc' in Somerset Barrows Part II, , Vol. Vol 115, (1971), p. 91
Tratman, E K, 'University of Bristol Speleological Society' in Barrow Catalogue, ()
Tratman, EK, 'Proceedings of the Univ of Bristol Speleological Society' in Proceedings of the University of Bristol Speleological Society, , Vol. Vol 3(1), (1927), p. 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.