Bowl barrow 340m south east of Watermanhole Reservoir

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.

The monument is one of a dispersed group of barrows on Huggate Pasture and Warter Wold, which are related to other barrows on Huggate Wold. The location of the barrows close to an ancient greenway, and to the very extensive systems of dykes and hollow ways dating back to the Bronze Age, offers important insights into ancient land use and territorial divisions for social, ritual and agricultural purposes in this area of the Yorkshire Wolds. Despite part excavations and the effects of ploughing over many years, the barrow still survives as a visible feature in the landscape, and will contain further burials and archaeological information relating to its construction.

Details

The monument includes a Bronze Age bowl barrow 340m south east of Watermanhole Reservoir, situated around 1.5km south west of Huggate Wold and 1km north of Huggate Pasture. The monument is one of a broadly related group of barrows surviving in this area, which together form part of a much larger group of bowl barrows dispersed across Huggate and Warter Wolds and Huggate Pasture. Although altered over the years by agricultural activity which has considerably reduced the height of the mound and spread its surface area, the barrow is still visible as a low rise in the land, up to 0.2m high and 20m in diameter. It is surrounded by a ditch up to 3m wide, which, although infilled by ploughing and now no longer visible at ground level, will survive as a buried feature. The monument was originally part of a larger cemetery of 19 bowl barrows identified by J R Mortimer in the 1880s, running approximately north-south from the vicinity of Huggate Pasture down to Warter Wold. This group lies to the west of another group of 20 similar barrows identified by Mortimer, lying dispersed across Huggate Wold. These barrows lie close to the ancient trackway running on the western side of the Wolds, part of which survives today and is known as the Wolds Way. The monument lies within a complex of linear bank and ditch systems, and should be viewed in the context of the wider ancient landscape, where very extensive systems of these banks, dykes and hollow ways link large tracts of the countryside in this region of the Yorkshire Wolds. According to J R Mortimer, the barrow was subject to unrecorded excavations, both by James Silburn in 1851 and then by Mr Thomas of Boston, Lincolnshire in 1881. No finds were reported and Mortimer decided against further excavation during his investigations of the barrows in this area.

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:

26553

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Mortimer, J R, Forty Years Researches in British and Saxon Burial Mounds of East Yorkshire, (1905)

End of official list entry

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