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 having been levelled by cultivation, the bowl barrows 140m north of
the A303 are known from partial excavation to contain archaeological remains
and environmental evidence relating to the monument and the landscape in which
it was constructed. Field inspection has 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 four levelled bowl barrows situated 140m north of the
A303 on Stonehenge Down, on a south facing slope with views over Normanton
Down. Three of the barrows form a NNE-SSW alignment, the fourth is positioned
to the west of the central barrow in the line. None of the barrows are visible
on the surface, but their location is recorded on a 19th century plan from
which the diameter of the mounds is calculated to range from 15m to 20m. All
the mounds are surrounded by ditches from which material was quarried during
their construction. The ditch of the western barrow is depicted on the 19th
century plan, from which it is calculated that the barrow had an overall
diameter of c.40m. The ditches surrounding the other three barrows are
calculated to be c.2m wide, giving overall diameters ranging from c.19m to
c.24m. Partial excavation of one of the barrows in the 19th century yielded an
urn containing a cremation and two pieces of twisted brass wire.
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.
