Bowl barrow 140m WNW of Slough Glebe Farm, part of the Saunderton Lee round barrow cemetery

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.

Despite being reduced by cultivation, the bowl barrow 140m WNW of Slough Glebe Farm will retain significant archaeological information. Funerary remains will survive in buried features within the area of the mounds which will illustrate the function of the monument and the beliefs of the community which built it. Further remains, funerary and otherwise, may also be found in the silts of the surrounding ditch, as well as environmental evidence which will demonstrate the appearance of the landscape in which it was set.

The association between this barrow and the other barrows which together comprise the cemetery centred on Saunderton Lee provides important information concerning the variation in prehistoric burial practices. Furthermore, the cemetery's association with the wider barrow alignment, and the contemporary trackway which the alignment implies, is highly significant for the study of prehistoric settlement within the Chiltern Hills.

Details

The monument includes the buried remains of a Bronze Age bowl barrow situated on the southern end of a low ridge within the broad valley between Bledlow Ridge and Callow Hill, to the west of the railway line from High Wycombe and Princes Risborough.

The barrow mound appeared as a substantial earthwork in the early 19th century and was partially excavated in 1858. The mound has since been ploughed down although a slight rise of approximately 0.5m remains which, together with the buried quarry ditch encircling the mound, still appears as a dark soilmark and cropmark recorded in a sequence of aerial photographs taken between 1937 and 1981. The barrow is approximately 42m in diameter measured from the outer edge of the surrounding, c.3m wide ditch. The area of dark coloured soil recorded in the centre of the mound area measures some 24m across, and is thought to represent the remains of a turf stack at the core of the mound.

The barrow forms part of a small round barrow cemetery which includes four similar monuments (the subject of separate schedulings): a bell barrow and two bowl barrows situated on the slightly higher ground to the north west, and a further bowl barrow located down the slope to the south, on the south side of Haw Lane. This cemetery, in turn, forms the central section of a wider alignment of barrows extending across the valley from Saunderton Station (c.1km to the south east) to Wain Hill (3.5km to the north west). The alignment is thought to reflect the route of a prehistoric trackway which, from the topographical position of the Saunderton Lee cemetery, appears to have followed a shallow coombe immediately to the south west before continuing northwards around the western side of Lodge Hill. Prehistoric activity is also demonstrated by the number of worked flint artefacts which have been recovered from the fields to the west of the bowl barrow and to the south of Haw Lane.

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:

27121

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Head, J F, Early Man in South Buckinghamshire, (1955), 49-53
Burgess, W, Records of Bucks in Antiquities of the Chiltern Hills, Vol. 1, (1848), 22

Other
Title: 1:10,000 feature location Maps Source Date: Author: Publisher: Surveyor:
B.C.M. Accessions Register, (1972)
AP held by Bucks Museums Service, Farley, M E, A5/15/5A 6A, (1981)
Ordnance Survey Record card, NKB, SU 89 NW 07, (1972)
AP held by Bucks Museums Service, Major Allen, SU 80/98, (1937)
AP sequence 1937 to 1974, St Joseph, J K S (CUCAP), ACT 34, AFW 4-5, ARA 43-4, AST 41-2, BMH 84-5, BRW 1-5, CN 34,
RCHM, The Monuments of Buckinghamshire,

End of official list entry

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