Reasons for Designation
A small number of areas in southern England appear to have acted as foci for
ceremonial and ritual activity during the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods.
Two of the best known and earliest recognised areas are around Avebury and
Stonehenge, now jointly designated as a World Heritage Site.
The area of chalk downland which surrounds Stonehenge contains one of the
densest and most varied groups of Neolithic and Bronze Age field monuments in
Britain. Included within the area are Stonehenge itself, the Stonehenge
cursus, the Durrington Walls henge, and a variety of burial monuments, many
grouped into cemeteries.
The area has been the subject of archaeological research since the 18th
century when Stukeley recorded many of the monuments and partially excavated a
number of the burial mounds. More recently, the collection of artefacts from
the surfaces of ploughed fields has supplemented the evidence for ritual and
burial by revealing the intensity of contemporary settlement and land-use.
In view of the importance of the area, all ceremonial and sepulchral monuments
of this period which retain significant archaeological remains are identified
as nationally important. 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, normally 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 variety of burial practices. There are over
10,000 surviving bowl barrows recorded nationally and at least 320 in the
Stonehenge area. This group of monuments will provide important information
on the development of this area during the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age
periods.
Despite their reduction in height by cultivation, the bowl barrows on the
southern edge of Luxenborough Plantation are known from partial excavation to
contain archaeological remains and environmental evidence relating to the
monument and the landscape in which it was constructed. Aerial photographs
have shown that the ditch fills survive undisturbed, while deposits located on
the Bronze Age ground surface will survive beneath the area disturbed by
cultivation.
Details
The monument includes three bowl barrows located on the southern edge of and
partly within Luxenborough Plantation and situated on the west slope of
Coneybury Hill with views WSW across Normanton Down. The barrow mounds are now
difficult to identify on the ground. The most easterly barrow is visible as a
slight earthwork 0.2m high, but its exact size is difficult to establish. The
mound is, however, represented on the 1972 OS 1:2500 map from which its
diameter is calculated to be 25m. All of the barrow mounds are surrounded by
ditches from which material was quarried during their construction. These have
become infilled over the years but survive as buried features. These are
visible on aerial photographs from which overall diameters for the barrows are
calculated to be 15m, 45m and 40m. The two larger barrows appear to have been
confluent and the eastern of these was partially excavated in the 19th century
when a primary cremation together with a grape cup contained in a deep cist
was found.
All fence posts are excluded from the scheduling but the ground beneath these
features is included.
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.