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Giant's Grave: a long barrow 400m north-west of Down Farm

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1015980
Date first listed:: 08-Oct-1981

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1015980
Date first listed:: 08-Oct-1981
Date of most recent amendment:: 07-Mar-1991

Location

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

County:: Hampshire
District:: New Forest (District Authority)
Parish:: Breamore
National Grid Reference:: SU 13889 20034

Reasons for Designation

Long barrows were constructed as earthen or drystone mounds with flanking ditches and acted as funerary monuments during the Early and Middle Neolithic periods (3400-2400 BC). They represent the burial places of Britain's early farming communities and, as such, are amongst the oldest field monuments surviving visibly in the present landscape. Where investigated, long barrows appear to have been used for communal burial, often with only parts of the human remains having been selected for interment. Certain sites provide evidence for several phases of funerary monument preceding the barrow and, consequently, it is probable that long barrows acted as important ritual sites for local communities over a considerable period of time. Some 500 long barrows are recorded in England. As one of the few types of Neolithic structure to survive as earthworks, and due to their comparative rarity, their considerable age and their longevity as a monument type, all long barrows are considered to be nationally important.

The 180 long barrows of Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset form the densest and one of the most significant concentrations of monuments of this type in the country. Giant's Grave is important as it survives well and, with no evidence of formal excavation, has considerable archaeological potential.

Details

The monument includes a long barrow set below the crest of a gentle south-west facing slope in an area of undulating chalk downland. The mound is rectangular in plan and orientated NE-SW with the NE end facing uphill and surviving to a height of 2.4m. The opposite end is downslope and appears much reduced by ploughing. The barrow mound is 68m long and 20m wide flanked on either side by a berm 0.5m wide and ditches from which the mound material was quarried. These run the length of the mound and survive to a width of 12.5m and a maximum depth of 0.2m.

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:: 12085
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Schofield, A J, Putting Lithics To The Test, (1987)
Smith, I F , Long Barrows in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, (1979)

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.