Gallow Hill bowl barrow and adjacent group of eight bowl barrows: part of a barrow cemetery on and around Salthouse Heath

Reasons for Designation

Round barrow cemeteries date to the Bronze Age (c.2000-700 BC). They comprise closely-spaced groups of up to 30 round barrows - rubble or earthen mounds covering single or multiple burials. Most cemeteries developed over a considerable period of time, often many centuries, and in some cases acted as a focus for burials as late as the early medieval period. They exhibit considerable diversity of burial rite, plan and form, frequently including several different types of round barrow, occasionally associated with earlier long barrows. Where large scale investigation has been undertaken around them, contemporary or later "flat" burials between the barrow mounds have often been revealed. Round barrow cemeteries occur across most of lowland Britain, with a marked concentration in Wessex. In some cases, they are clustered around other important contemporary monuments such as henges. Often occupying prominent locations, they are a major historic element in the modern landscape, whilst their diversity and their longevity as a monument type provide important information on the variety of beliefs and social organisation amongst early prehistoric communities. They are particularly representative of their period and a substantial proportion of surviving or partly-surviving examples are considered worthy of protection.

Gallow Hill and the eight smaller barrows adjacent to it survive well, both individually and as a group, and although there are indications that Gallow Hill has undergone some disturbance in the past, the area of this disturbance is small in relation to the barrow as a whole. Archaeological information concerning the construction and use of the barrows and their stratigraphic and chronological relationship to one another, as well as evidence for the local environment in the prehistoric period, will be retained in the upstanding earthworks, in soils buried beneath the barrow mounds and the bank around Gallow Hill, and in the fill of the surrounding ditches. This closely associated group is an important component of the largest barrow cemetery in Norfolk, and in that context has a wider significance for the study of the character and development of the prehistoric population of the area.

Details

The monument, which is divided into two areas separated by Wood Lane, includes the large bowl barrow known as Gallow Hill, and eight smaller bowl barrows adjacent to it on the south and south east sides. These barrows form a distinct cluster on the eastern side of a dispersed round barrow cemetery which extends over an area of c.1.3 sq km. Gallow Hill, in the area to the north of the road, is visible as an earthen mound encircled by a ditch and the remains of a bank around the outer edge of the ditch. The mound stands to a height of c.2m and covers a circular area c.27m in diameter. A slight depression c.6m wide in the surface of the mound, extending from the southern edge towards the centre, is perhaps the result of an antiquarian excavation. The surrounding ditch, from which earth was dug during the construction of the barrow, has become partly infilled, but is marked by a hollow c.3m wide in the ground surface, except on the north side of the mound, where it has been completely infilled by ploughing but will survive as a buried feature. The bank remains upstanding on the west and east sides of the barrow to a height of c.0.4m and measures c.4m wide at the base. The barrow therefore has a maximum overall diameter of 41m. The eight associated barrows are situated in the second area, immediately to the south of Wood Lane, and are visible as smaller earthen mounds lying on a WSW-ENE alignment. Six of them are in a direct line, with two more slightly to the north west of this and south west of Gallow Hill. At the eastern end of the main alignment are three contiguous mounds. The easternmost of these lies c.45m ESE of Gallow Hill and measures c.1m in height and c.17m in diameter. The second, to the west of the first, measures c.0.5m in height and c.12m in diameter, and the third and most prominent of the three, which lies c.28m south east of Gallow Hill, measures c.1.2m in height and c.17m in diameter. Beyond this, at a distance of c.5m, is a fourth mound c.0.6m high and c.16m in diameter. Immediately to the north and south of these mounds are slight hollows c.3m wide in the ground surface, which are considered to mark surrounding ditches, now largely infilled but surviving as buried features. The fifth barrow mound lies c.12m to the west of the fourth and c.25m south of Gallow Hill and is contiguous with the sixth, at the western end of the line. Both measure c.12m in diameter and c.1m in height. The seventh, lying c.6m north west of these and the eighth, at a distance of c.16m WNW from them, are of similar height and c.14m in diameter. It is likely that these mounds, also, are surrounded by buried ditches. A narrow farm track crosses the area of the buried ditch on the east side of the easternmost barrow, the surface of this track is excluded from the scheduling although the ground beneath it 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.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

21362

Legacy System:

RSM

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Print the official list entry