Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

See our extensive range of expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

Winterbourne Stoke East round barrow cemetery and earthwork enclosure on Fore Down

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1015020
Date first listed:: 10-Mar-1925

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1015020
Date first listed:: 10-Mar-1925
Date of most recent amendment:: 29-Aug-1996

Location

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

District:: Wiltshire (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Winterbourne Stoke
National Grid Reference:: SU 08250 42350

Reasons for Designation

A small number of areas in southern England appear to have acted as foci for ceremonial and ritual activity during the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods. Two of the best known and earliest recognised areas are around Avebury and Stonehenge, now jointly designated as a World Heritage Site. The area of chalk downland which surrounds Stonehenge contains one of the densest and most varied groups of Neolithic and Bronze Age field monuments in Britain. Included within the area are Stonehenge itself, the Stonehenge cursus, the Durrington Walls henge, and a variety of burial monuments, many grouped into cemeteries. The area has been the subject of archaeological research since the 18th century when Stukeley recorded many of the monuments and partially excavated a number of the burial mounds. More recently, the collection of artefacts from the surfaces of ploughed fields has supplemented the evidence for ritual and burial by revealing the intensity of contemporary settlement and land-use. In view of the importance of the area, all ceremonial and sepulchral monuments of this period which retain significant archaeological remains are identified as nationally important. Round barrow cemeteries date to the Bronze Age (2000-700 BC). They comprise closely spaced groups of up to 30 round barrows - rubble or earthen mounds covering single or multiple burials. Most cemeteries developed over a considerable period of time, often many centuries, and in some cases acted as a focus for burials as late as the early medieval period. They exhibit considerable diversity of burial rite, plan and form, frequently including several different types of round barrow and occasionally associated with earlier long barrows. Where investigation beyond the round barrows has occurred, contemporary or later `flat' burials between the barrow mounds have often been revealed. Round barrow cemeteries occur across most of lowland England with a marked concentration in Wessex. In some cases they are clustered around other important contemporary monuments, as is the case both here and at Avebury. Often occupying prominent positions, they are a major historic element in the modern landscape, while their diversity and their longevity as a monument type provide important information on the variety of beliefs and social organisation amongst early prehistoric communities.

The Winterbourne Stoke East round barrow cemetery survives well and part excavation of the barrows has shown that they contain archaeological remains and environmental evidence relating to the monument and the landscape in which it was constructed. The earthwork enclosure which surrounds the barrow cemetery on Fore Down represents an unusual association.

Details

The monument includes the 11 barrows of the Winterbourne Stoke East round barrow cemetery and the oval earthwork enclosure within which they lie, situated on the south western end of Fore Down with views westwards over the valley of the River Till. The nucleated cemetery includes ten bowl barrows and a saucer barrow all of which survive as earthworks. Seven of the barrows are arranged in a line approximately north west to south east. Three others are located to the west and one other to the east of this line. The mounds of the bowl barrows range from 9m to 31m in diameter, and from 0.3m to 1.8m high. All are surrounded by ditches, ranging in size from 1.5m wide in the case of the smallest barrow, to 3m wide around the largest mound. The saucer barrow is situated between two of the bowl barrows in the north west to south east alignment. The central mound is 10.5m in diameter and 0.5m high, surrounded by a ditch 2m wide and the whole enclosed by an outer bank 3m wide. The ditches of the bowl barrows have slightly truncated the outer bank which would suggest an earlier date for the saucer barrow. All the barrows are known to have been partly excavated in the 19th century, most revealing evidence of burial. Both cremations and inhumations were found accompanied by a variety of grave goods including Bronze Age pots, a bone arrowhead and drinking cups. Also included in the monument is a broadly oval earthwork enclosure within which the barrows lie. The earthwork includes a low bank up to 3m wide and 0.3m high and a shallow outer ditch c.2m wide. The earthwork, within which there is a gap on the north east side, encloses an area of 3ha. It has been suggested as being of post-medieval date but this remains unproven. All fence posts are excluded from the scheduling, but the ground beneath these features is included.

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:: 28922
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Grinsell, LV, The Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume V, (1957), 271
Hoare, R C, Ancient History of Wiltshire, (1812), 115-116
Hoare, R C, Ancient History of Wiltshire, (1812), 115-116
Hoare, R C, Ancient History of Wiltshire, (1812), 115-116
Hoare, R C, Ancient History of Wiltshire, (1812), 115-116
Hoare, R C, Ancient History of Wiltshire, (1812), 115-116
Hoare, R C, Ancient History of Wiltshire, (1812), 115-116
Hoare, R C, Ancient History of Wiltshire, (1812), 115-116
Hoare, R C, Ancient History of Wiltshire, (1812), 115-116
Hoare, R C, Ancient History of Wiltshire, (1812), 115-116
Hoare, R C, Ancient History of Wiltshire, (1812), 115-116
Hoare, R C, Ancient History of Wiltshire, (1812), 115-116
Hoare, R C, Ancient History of Wiltshire, (1812), 115-116

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.