Long barrow 500m south-west of Sanctuary Farm

Reasons for Designation

Long barrows were constructed as earthen or drystone mounds with flanking ditches and acted as funerary monuments during the Early and Middle Neolithic periods (3400-2400 BC). They represent the burial places of Britain's early farming communities and, as such, are amongst the oldest field monuments surviving visibly in the present landscape. Where investigated, long barrows appear to have been used for communal burial, often with only parts of the human remains having been selected for interment. Certain sites provide evidence for several phases of funerary monument preceding the barrow and, consequently, it is probable that long barrows acted as important ritual sites for local communities over a considerable period of time. Some 500 long barrows are recorded in England. As one of the few types of Neolithic structure to survive as earthworks, and due to their comparative rarity, their considerable age and their longevity as a monument type, all long barrows are considered to be nationally important.

The 180 long barrows of Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset form the densest and one of the most significant concentrations of monuments of this type in the country. The Sanctuary Farm barrow is particularly important as it is one of three such monuments surviving in the immediate vicinity. Such groups rarely survive and give an indication of the intensity with which areas were settled during the Neolithic period.

Details

The monument includes a long barrow, surviving as a low earthwork and set in an area of undulating chalk downland. The barrow mound is orientated ENE-WSW and survives to a length of 97m. It has a maximum width of 20m at the NE end and 10m at the SW end. Two ditches, from which mound material was quarried, flank the mound. Although no longer visible at ground level, these survive as buried features to a width of 5m. The site survives to a maximum height of 1m in the hedgerow and gardens west of West Hill Road North. East of the road, in an area heavily ploughed over several years, the mound survives to 0.4m high. The road itself is excluded from the scheduling although the area beneath the road surface is included. Although never formally excavated, two finds have been recorded from the site. A flint scraper was recovered from the SW end of the mound and a small axe made of greenstone from Great Langdale in the Lake District, was found in a garden NW of the road.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

12082

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Smith, I F, Long Barrows in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, (1979), 185-6
Dunning, G C, Antiquaries Journal in A new long barrow in Hampshire, Vol. 26, (1946)

Other
Winchester City Museum, Re: Sanctuary Farm long barrow,

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