Bowl barrow 250m south-west of Tangham Cottages in Tangham Forest

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1013879
Date first listed:: 17-Apr-1979

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1013879
Date first listed:: 17-Apr-1979
Date of most recent amendment:: 26-Jan-1993

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Suffolk
District:: East Suffolk (District Authority)
Parish:: Capel St. Andrew
National Grid Reference:: TM 34462 47697

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.

Although the barrow south-west of Tangham Cottages is known to have suffered limited damage by the digging of a trench in recent years, the scale of disturbance is small in relation to the monument as a whole, which retains considerable archaeological information. Evidence of the manner in which the barrow was constructed and used, of the duration of its use, and also of the local environment, prior to and at the time of its construction, will survive in the mound itself, in the soils buried beneath the mound and in the fill of the surrounding ditch. The importance of this monument is enhanced by the fact that it is one of at least three barrows which survive within a distance of approximately 1km.

Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow which consists of an earthen mound and an encircling ditch. The barrow mound covers an area 17m in diameter and stands to a maximum height of 1m. The surrounding ditch, from which earth was dug and used in the construction of the mound, has for the most part become filled-in, but survives as a buried feature and is visible on the south-east side of the mound as a slight depression measuring 4m wide and 0.25m deep. In 1987 two sherds of Bronze Age pottery were found in the soil cast up from a recent trench 2.7m long, 0.9m wide and 1.2m deep which had been dug without consent into the summit of the mound. This trench has now been refilled.

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:: 21252
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Other
Martin E A, Suffolk SMR CSA 002, (1987)
Ordnance Survey, TM 34 NW 1, (1962)

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.