Ash Holt long barrow

Summary

The earthwork and buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow located some 74m AOD on the eastern edge of Ash Holt, a large spinney around 1.4km to the east of the village of Cuxwold, and immediately to the west of the Thorganby to Swallow road.

Reasons for Designation

Ash Holt long barrow is scheduled for the following principal reasons:

* Survival: as an earthwork representing the burial practices, beliefs and social organisation amongst early prehistoric communities;

* Potential: for buried deposits which retain considerable potential to provide evidence relating to social organisation and demographics, cultural associations, human development, disease, diet, and death rituals. Buried environmental evidence can also inform us about the landscape in which the barrow was constructed;

* Period: as one of very few monument types dating to the early prehistoric, it is highly representative of the period;

* Rarity: as an example of a monument type which is rare nationally and one of very few monument types to offer us insight into the lives and deaths of early prehistoric communities in this country;

* Group value: as the most northerly of a group of similar monuments located along the valley of the Waite Beck, an association which not only demonstrates the ritual significance of this area, but has wider implications for the study of demography and settlement patterns during the Neolithic period.

History

Long barrows and chambered tombs are the main forms of Neolithic funerary monument, constructed from before 3800 BC with new monuments continuing to be built throughout the 4th millennium BC. Where they are precisely dated it appears their primary use for burial rarely lasted longer than about 100 years. Generally comprising long, linear earthen mounds or stone cairns, often flanked by ditches, they can appear as distinctive features in the landscape. They measure up to about 100m in length, 35m in width and 4m in height, and are sometimes trapezoidal or oval in plan. Earthen long barrows are found mostly in southern and eastern England and are usually unchambered, although some examples have been found to contain timber mortuary structures. Regional variation in construction is generally a reflection of locally available resources. Megalithic or stone chambered tombs are most common in Scotland and Wales, but are also found in those parts of England with ready access to the large stones and boulders from which they are constructed, especially the Cotswolds, the South-West and Kent. There are around 540 long barrows recorded nationally.

Long barrows of the Lincolnshire Wolds have been identified as a distinct regional grouping of monuments in which the flanking ditches are continued around the ends of the barrow mound, either continuously or broken by a single causeway towards one end. More than 60 examples of this type of monument are known; a small number of these survive as earthworks, but the great majority of sites are known as cropmarks and soilmarks recorded on aerial photographs where no mound is evident at the surface. Not all Lincolnshire long barrows include mounds. Current limited understanding of the processes of Neolithic mortuary ritual in Lincolnshire is that the large barrow mound represents the final phase of construction which was not reached by all mortuary monuments. Many of the sites where only the ditched enclosure is known have been interpreted as representing monuments which had fully evolved mounds, but in which the mound itself has been degraded or removed by subsequent agricultural activity. In a minority of cases, however, the ditched enclosure will represent a monument which never developed a burial mound.

Although Ash Holt long barrow first appears on Ordnance Survey maps dating to the 1950s, it was initially identified in 1932 by CW Phillips following his updating of the Lincolnshire antiquities on behalf of the OS. He recorded the barrow as being one of the smallest in the county, measuring 23.7m long by 5.5m to 11.6m wide, with a height of between 0.4m to 1.5m Phillips also noted that the parish boundary between Swallow and Cuxwold (now Beelsby) respected the existence of the mound, deviating slightly from an otherwise straight course, to include it within Swallow parish. It was scheduled in November 1934.

In 2018, as part of the Lincolnshire Long Barrows Assessment Project, an earthwork survey of the barrow was undertaken by Archaeological Project Services/Heritage Lincolnshire. This confirmed the existence of a trapezoidal barrow mound measuring 27.5m long with a width of between 7m and 15m, and a maximum height of around 0.9m. It was noted that the mound was difficult to discern on its western side due to a steep drop in the ground surface. There was no indication of an external ditch, but given the natural slope, this could have been infilled on the west side and eroded on the east. A large hollow at its southern end was believed by Phillips to be the result of pit digging, but he further stated that there was no evidence of excavated material around the mound itself.

In 2024, an analysis of Lidar Composite Digital Terrain Modelling (DTM) 1m data showed that the barrow could measure up to 34m in length and around 21m wide to account for the buried remains of a surrounding quarry ditch.

Details

PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS: the earthwork and buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow located around 74m AOD on the eastern edge of Ash Holt, a large spinney around 1.4km to the east of the village of Cuxwold, and immediately to the west of the Thorganby to Swallow road. It stands at the upper end of a minor valley running down to the Croxby and Waithe Becks.

DETAILS: the barrow survives as a trapeziodal mound aligned north-north-east to south-south-west and measures around 27.5m long and 15m wide at its southern end, tapering to no more than 7m at the northern end. It stands to a height of about 0.9m at the wider, southern end, gradually tailing off along its length to around 0.3m. The mound is largely undisturbed except for an irregular hollow at its southern end which measures 5m by 5m and up to 0.9m and is possibly the result of an antiquarian investigation. The quarry ditch cannot be seen but an analysis of Lidar Composite Digital Terrain Modelling (DTM) 1m data shows that it probably survives as a buried feature, giving the barrow overall dimensions of 34m in length and 21m in width.

Ash Holt long barrow is the most northerly of a group of similar monuments located along the valley of the Waite Beck, an association which demonstrates the ritual significance of this area and has wider implications for the study of demograpgy and settlement patterns during the Neolithic period.

EXTENT OF SCHEDULING: the scheduled area is shown on the accompanying map extract and includes a 5m buffer zone around the barrow, which is 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:

27869

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Phillips, CW, The Long Barrows of Lincolnshire in Archaeological Journal, Vol. 89, (1932), 176, 184-5
Jones, D, Long Barrows and Neolithic Elongated Enclosures in Lincolnshire: An Analysis of the Air Photographic Evidence in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, Vol. 64, (1998), 83-114
Jones, D, Gazetteer of Neolithic Elongated Enclosures and Extant Long Barrows in (Historic) Lincolnshire, (1997)

Websites
Information on Ash Holt long barrow from the Lincolnshire Heritage Explorer website, accessed 8 January 2025 from https://heritage-explorer.lincolnshire.gov.uk/Monument/MLI54208

Other
Archaeological Project Services/Heritage Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire Long Barrows Assessment Project (No.7400), 'Analytical Earthwork Survey Report: Ash Holt Wood, Swallow, Lincolnshire' (2018)
LIDAR Environment Agency, Composite DTM 1m: TA10SE (2022)

End of official list entry

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