Knap barrow: a long barrow 900m west of Down 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 examples of long barrows and long cairns, their counterparts in the uplands, are recorded nationally. 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 important concentrations of monuments of this type in the country. Knap barrow is important as it survives particularly well and appears as one of a group of three long barrows in the immediate area. Such clusters give an indication of the intensity with which areas were settled during the Neolithic Period.

Details

The monument includes a long barrow, conspicuously sited on Toyd Down and well preserved under rough grassland at a junction of three trackways. The mound, orientated south east-north west, is now tapered in plan with the broader end facing south east. The shape of the tapered end is due, in part, to disturbance of the south side where a terrace up to 3m wide has been cut along the length of the mound. The mound is 95m long and varies in width between 15m at the south east end and 11m at the west end. It survives to a height of 1.8m at the south east end of the mound. The mound is flanked by two ditches from which the mound material was quarried. These have been infilled over the years but survive as buried features up to a width of 10m, one under arable cultivation south of the mound, one overlain by the trackway to the north. About 100m to the south east of Knap barrow is a second, well-preserved long barrow known as Gran's Barrow. A third long barrow, Duck's Nest, is visible to the north.

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:

12087

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Smith, I F, Long Barrows in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, (1979), 31
Lane Poole, EH, Damerham and Martin: a study in local history, (1976), 53

End of official list entry

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