Neolithic long barrow 400m SSE of radio station

Summary

Earthwork and buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow.

Reasons for Designation

The long barrow 400m SSE of radio station is scheduled for the following principal reasons:

* Survival: as a prehistoric long barrow confirmed to survive as a shallow earthwork and visible as a clearly defined crop mark through aerial photography;
* Potential: for the buried archaeological 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 barrows were 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 insight into the lives and deaths of early prehistoric communities in this country;
* Group value: for its close proximity to other contemporary or spatially related scheduled monuments, notably Long Barrow east of Acre House (NHLE 1017247), Top Buildings long barrow (NHLE 1013887), Long Barrow 330m north of Top Buildings (NHLE 1489445) and a Neolithic mortuary enclosure and two Bronze Age bowl barrows north of Otby Top Farm (NHLE 1018862).

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. A small number survive as earthworks, but the majority are known from crop marks and soil marks where no or very low mounds are evident on the surface. Not all Lincolnshire long barrows had mounds and our current understanding of Neolithic mortuary practices in this part of the country is that the large barrow mound was in fact the final phase of construction which was not reached by all monuments. Previously many of the sites where only the ditched enclosure is known have been interpreted as a barrow where the mound has been degraded or removed by subsequent agricultural activity. In some cases, the ditched enclosure (mortuary enclosure) represents a monument which never developed a mound.

The long barrow 400m SSE of radio station was first scheduled in 1996 but subsequent analysis of aerial photographs show the original scheduled area to lie 33m north-east of the actual location of the monument. In 2024 the scheduled area was amended to accurately cover the remains of the long barrow.

Details

Principal Elements

The shallow earthwork remains of a long barrow aligned north-west to south-east lie on slightly undulating ground on the western side of the head of the valley above Normanby Dales at 160m AOD. A small spring rises in the valley and the stream eventually joins Kingerby Beck. It is located 400m to the south-south-east of the radio station.

Description

The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow located 160m above ordnance datum and below the summit of a plateau separating the valleys of the Nettleton and Otby Becks. It overlooks the head of the Otby Beck which rises in Normanby Dales some 400m to the east. The position of the barrow, similar to surrounding barrows, is not at the crest of the hill but slightly below.

Despite not being visible on the ground, the long barrow is visible as an elongated oblong cropmark on aerial photographs. The cropmark is displayed as three sides of a trapezoid, elongated north-west by south-east and defined by a perimeter ditch measuring approximately 70.7m by 27.4m. The long sides of the ditch are straight, and the south-eastern, wider end is slightly convex. The north-west face is not visible. A spread oval mound is visible as a shallow earthwork on a digital elevation model (DEM) derived from 2m gridded height data, centred at TF 1255 9572. This clearly indicates the barrow mound, though spread to a much wider footprint than the ditched enclosure.

Although the long barrow 400m south-south-east of the radio station has been reduced by ploughing, it will retain rare and valuable archaeological deposits within the spread mound, on the buried ground surface and in the fills of the ditch. These will provide valuable information relating to its dating and construction and the sequence of mortuary practices at the site. Environmental evidence will also be preserved which will illustrate the nature of the contemporary landscape in which the monument was set.

It is thought that the ditch - which may have supported a palisade and facade or an arrangement of posts - delineated an area set aside for mortuary activities including the exposure of human remains. Structures and deposits associated with these activities will survive as buried features within the enclosure.

The monument is one of a number of prehistoric burial mounds associated with both the head and valley of the Otby Beck as well as with High Street, which originated as a prehistoric trackway, situated about 1.4km to the east. These associations are likely to be indicative of the ritual significance of this location in the prehistoric period. The number of these monuments in this area also poses wider questions regarding prehistoric demography and settlement patterns. The scheduled long barrow east of Acre House (NHLE 1017247) has been identified about 1km to the north-west, and Top Buildings long barrow (NHLE 1013887) lies at a similar distance to the north-east. Long barrow 330m north of Top Buildings (NHLE 1489445) also lies around 1.1km to the north-east. Intervisibility may have been possible between these long barrows. A Neolithic mortuary enclosure and two Bronze Age bowl barrows (NHLE 1018862) are also located to the south-east of the monument.

Extent of Scheduling

The scheduling includes the full extent of the long barrow plus a 5m buffer zone around it considered necessary for the support and preservation of the monument.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

27895

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Field, D, Earthen Long Barrows: The Earliest Monuments in the British Isles, (2006)
Last, J, Beyond the Grave, New Perspectives on Barrows, (2007)
Woodward, A, British Barrows A Matter of Life and Death, (2000)
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

Other
Discussion, Jones, D, (1995)
Oblique monochrome photograph, Everson, P, 2977/30, 36-38, (1979)

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