Barrow cemetery on Hardown Hill 600m west of Butt Farm

Reasons for Designation

Round barrow cemeteries date to the Bronze Age (c.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, occasionally associated with earlier long barrows. Where large scale investigation has been undertaken around them, contemporary or later "flat" burials between the barrow mounds have often been revealed. Round barrow cemeteries occur across most of lowland Britain, with a marked concentration in Wessex. In some cases, they are clustered around other important contemporary monuments such as henges. Often occupying prominent locations, they are a major historic element in the modern landscape, whilst their diversity and their longevity as a monument type provide important information on the variety of beliefs and social organisation amongst early prehistoric communities. They are particularly representative of their period and a substantial proportion of surviving or partly-surviving examples are considered worthy of protection.

The round barrow cemetery on Hardown Hill 600m west of Butt Farm is a well preserved example of its class and will contain archaeological remains providing information relating to Bronze Age and later burial practices, economy and environment. Part excavation of one of the barrows in 1916 identified secondary burials of early Saxon date indicating continuity of use. Finds of this date are rare within Dorset.

Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow cemetery of five bowl barrows on Hardown Hill 600m west of Butt Farm. Four barrows lie on the edge of the hill in a curved line aligned north-south. These barrows vary in diameter between 9m and 13m and between 0.6m and 1m in height. Surrounding each mound is a quarry ditch from which material was excavated during their construction. These have become infilled over the years but survive as buried features approximately 2m wide. The fifth barrow has a mound, 8m in diameter and 0.4m high, with a large flat-bottomed hollow in the middle, surrounded by two concentric banks. The inner bank, at a distance of 3.5m from the edge of the mound, is a vague feature 1m wide and 0.1m high with an outer ditch 1m wide and 0.1m deep. A gap of about 2m separates the banks. The outer bank, 2m wide and about 0.3m high, links four horseshoe-shaped earthworks symetrically placed around the circle with the open sides facing towards the central mound. These earthworks, an average of 10m wide and 0.5m high, all have depressions up to 0.5m deep in their bases. The ditch external to the outer bank is vague and intermittent and curves around the outer edges of these features. It is thought that the central mound is most likely a Bronze Age burial mound which has been later incorporated into a more elaborate earthwork feature. In 1916 one of these barrows was excavated by Dr Wynyatt Wingrave, who found it to contain pagan Saxon burials with grave goods including spearheads, a knife, a shield boss, and a bronze brooch dating to the mid-fifth to the mid- sixth century. The exact provenance of the finds is uncertain but the mound within the concentric banks seems the most likely location because of the size of the depression cut into it. The objects found suggest a minimum of five graves which are thought to be secondary burials inserted into the Bronze Age barrow.

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:

29580

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Procs Dorset Nat Hist and Archaeology Soc in An Anglo-Saxon burial on Hardown Hill, Vol. 53, (1931), 247-149
Procs Dorset Nat Hist and Archaeology Soc in An Anglo-Saxon burial on Hardown Hill, Vol. 53, (1931), 247-249
Procs Dorset Nat Hist and Archaeology Soc in An Anglo-Saxon burial on Hardown Hill, Vol. 53, (1931), 247-249
Procs of the Dorset Nat Hist and Archaeology Society in The Anglo Saxon Finds from Hardown Hill, Vol. 90, (1968), 232-240
Procs of the Dorset Nat Hist and Archaeology Society in The Anglo Saxon Finds from Hardown Hill, Vol. 90, (1968), 232-240
Procs of the Dorset Nat Hist and Archaeology Society in The Anglo Saxon Finds from Hardown Hill, Vol. 90, (1968), 232-240

End of official list entry

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