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.
Details
Little Kit's Coty House, also known as The Countless Stones, is
situated near the foot of the North Downs scarp some 600m from the
Kits Coty House Long Barrow. It comprises a group of ca.20 sarsen
boulders in a tight cluster and represents the remains of a burial
chamber which was seriously damaged in 1690 before any reliable
records were made. The stones and an area immediately around them are
in the Guardianship of English Heritage.
The understanding of the monument relies heavily on the
reconstructions made by Stukeley in 1722 based on information from a
correspondent who remembered the monument before its alteration. The
reconstructions suggest a monument somewhat similar in its original
form to that at Coldrum, 10km to the west, with a burial chamber in
which skeletons may have been deposited, an earthen mound partially or
completely covering the chamber and a revetting wall of smaller sarsen
stones surrounding the mound. The size of the surrounding revetting
wall, or peristalith, may have been reduced to facilitate cultivation,
perhaps as early as during the Iron Age.
Evidence from a recent evaluation suggests that the monument did not
occupy one end of an elongated mound in the manner exemplified at
Kit's Coty House, and that no flanking ditches accompanied this
monument.
The railings which delineate the Guardianship area and the information
board are both excluded from the scheduling of this monument.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System number:
12771
Legacy System:
RSM
Sources
Books and journals Other
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.
End of official list entry
