Two round barrows 100m NE of Itchen Abbas Roman Villa

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1012692
Date first listed:: 29-Jul-1995

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1012692
Date first listed:: 29-Jul-1995

Location

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

County:: Hampshire
District:: Winchester (District Authority)
Parish:: Itchen Valley
National Grid Reference:: SU 52981 34364

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.

Despite some reduction in the height of the mound through ploughing, the bowl barrow, the north east of the pair, survives well. The position of the barrow, which is sited immediately below the crest of the ridge, in order to be seen from the valley to the south, provides a visual indication of contemporary settlement location. In addition, the surviving structure of this barrow, which appears never to have been excavated, will contain evidence not only of burial practices but also for the prehistoric environment and for the economy of its builders. The cropmark barrow, which may not, on the basis of its ditch shape and lack of a substantial earthwork mound, be a barrow of bowl form, will contain similar deposits within buried features such as the ditch.

Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow and a barrow of uncertain form, aligned south west-north east, situated 100m north east of the Itchen Abbas Roman villa. The barrows lie close together immediately below the crest of a chalk ridge on a slight south facing slope overlooking the valley of the River Itchen. The north east barrow can be recognised as a mound, 40m in diameter which, despite repeated ploughing, survives to a height of 0.5m. Although no longer visible at ground level, a ditch, from which material was quarried during construction of the monument, is known from previous records to surround the mound. This has become infilled over time but will survive as a buried feature 3m wide. The south west barrow can be recognised as a cropmark feature of slightly ovoid form, with maximum dimensions of 26m (south west- north east) and 20m (north west-south east).

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:: 26704
Legacy System:: RSM

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.