Bowl barrow 730m SSE of South Walk Farm

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 Bronze Age bowl barrow 730m SSE of South Walk Farm is a prominent earthwork clearly visible from the adjacent public highway to the east. Although the insertion of a Royal Observer Corps monitoring post has caused some disturbance to the mound, its positioning has not affected the primary burial, and much of the barrow remains intact. Valuable archaeological deposits, including human remains, will survive beneath the mound and in the fills of the buried ditch and will contain information relating to the dating and construction of the monument. Environmental evidence preserved in the same deposits will contain information on the nature of the landscape in which the monument was set. The barrow is one of a number of Bronze Age burial mounds associated with the valley of the River Bain and with the prehistoric trackway now formalised as High Street. These associations indicate the ritual significance of the location and pose wider questions concerning settlement patterns and communication routes during the prehistoric period.

Details

The monument includes the earthwork and buried remains of a Bronze Age bowl barrow located 130m above sea level 730m SSE of South Walk Farm. It is prominently situated on a plateau above and to the west of the valley of the River Bain and is directly adjacent to High Street which originated as a prehistoric trackway. The circular mound stands to a height of some 3m and measures c.20m in diameter. The ditch from which material for the mound would have been quarried is not visible but is thought to survive buried beneath the present ground surface. The smoothly sloping sides of the barrow rise to a flattened summit into which a Royal Observer Corps monitoring post was inserted in 1959. This involved the digging of a hole some 7m long by 3.5m wide and 3m deep into the western segment of the mound. While this work, which was archaeologically monitored, disturbed the barrow, it had the merit of demonstrating the probable function of the mound and some indication of its Bronze Age date was given by the scraps of pottery recovered. The siting of the monitoring post avoided damage to the significant archaeological deposits in the central area. A small bunker some 1.5m by 2.5m was also erected on the summit's surface to the south east. The monitoring post, which was decommissioned in 1976, is excluded from the scheduling although the ground beneath is included. The bowl barrow is one of a number of similar monuments which are associated with the River Bain and with High Street; the others are the subjects of separate schedulings.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 5 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:

27875

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Other
plan & details by D F Petch, PRN: 00152: Barrow 800 yards SSE of South Walk Farm, (1990)
discussion with Home Office rep., Jewell, S, (1995)
text, PRN: 00152: Barrow 800 yards SSE of South Walk Farm, (1990)

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