Three bowl barrows on Cannon Hill

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1015999
Date first listed:: 17-Oct-1930

User submitted image — Uploaded by mike rowland This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

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

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

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:: 1015999
Date first listed:: 17-Oct-1930
Date of most recent amendment:: 16-May-1997

Location

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

District:: Dorset (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Colehill
National Grid Reference:: SU 04037 01046, SU 04360 01040, SU 04611 00941

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 three bowl barrows on Cannon Hill are comparatively well preserved examples of their class and will contain archaeological remains providing information about Bronze Age burial practices, economy and environment.

Details

The monument, which lies within three areas, includes three bowl barrows on Cannon Hill. The western barrow lies near the crest of the hill and has a mound, 10m in diameter and 1m high, surrounded by a quarry ditch from which material was excavated during its construction. This is visible in places as a slight depression 2m wide. The central barrow, situated in a prominent position at the end of the ridge c.300m to the east, has a flat-topped mound 16.5m in diameter and c.1m high. The quarry ditch surrounding this mound is no longer visible but will survive as a buried feature 2m wide. The eastern mound lies on lower ground below the end of the ridge c.250m to the ESE. It has a mound, 28m in diameter and 2.6m high, surrounded by a quarry ditch which is visible in places as a depression 3m wide and 0.3m deep. All fence posts are excluded from the scheduling, although 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:: 29557
Legacy System:: RSM

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.