Round barrow in Mount Wood, 300m north-east of Upper Lodge

Reasons for Designation

The Mount Wood monument might either represent a Roman barrow or a Bronze Age bowl barrow. Roman barrows were constructed as steep sided conical mounds usually covering one or more burials generally believed to be those of high ranking individuals. The burials were mainly cremations, although inhumations have been recorded, and were often deposited with accompanying grave goods in chambers or cists constructed of wood, tile or stone sealed beneath the barrow mound. Occasionally the mound appears to have been built directly over a funeral pyre. Roman barrows are rare nationally, with less than 150 recorded examples, and are generally restricted to lowland England with the majority in East Anglia. The earliest examples date to the first decades of the Roman occupation while the majority were constructed in the early second century AD. 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 2400-1500bc. There are over 10,000 surviving bowl barrows recorded nationally occurring across most of lowland Britain. Whichever class of barrow it represents, the Mount Wood monument survives well and has potential for the recovery of archaeological evidence and environmental remains relating to the period in which it was constructed.

Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow set on a prominent hill-top in an area of undulating chalk downland. The barrow mound is 15m in diameter and 1.5m high. It is of conical shape with steep sides and may represent a Romano-British burial mound. Although no longer visible at ground level, a ditch, from which material was quarried during construction of the monument, surrounds the mound. This has become infilled over the years but survives as a buried feature c.2m wide.

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:

12338

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Other
Ferrell, G., MPP Single Monument Class Descriptions - Roman Barrows, (1988)

End of official list entry

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