Crippets long barrow, 680m north east of Dryhill Farm

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 examples of long barrows and long cairns, their counterparts in the uplands, are recorded nationally. 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.

Crippetts long barrow survives well, despite an area of localised disturbance at the eastern end, caused by 18th century excavations, and is set in an area of prehistoric activity, with two round barrows about 300m to the south east. The mound will contain evidence for stone chambers, burials and grave goods which will provide information about prehistoric funerary practices and about the size of the local community at that time. The barrow mound will also preserve environmental information in the buried original ground surface, predating the construction of the barrow and giving an insight into the landscape in which the monument was set. In addition the mound and its associated ditches will contain archaeological information and environmental evidence in the form of organic material which will relate both to the monument and the wider landscape.

Details

The monument includes a long barrow, orientated east-west located immediately below the crest of a hill in the Cotswolds, 680m north east of Dryhill Farm. It is visible as a barrow mound 70m long by 34m wide and ranging in height from 2m to 6m. At the eastern end of the mound is an excavated depression, measuring about 20m east-west and 14m north-south, which contains a flat stone 1.8m long. This is thought to be the capstone of a chamber opened during the late 18th century. Two parallel ditches, from which material was excavated during the construction of the monument, lie on either side of the barrow mound to the north and south. These ditches are no longer visible at ground level, having become infilled over the years, but survive as buried features about 3m wide. Rudder, writing in 1779, recorded that the barrow had been opened some years before. At a depth of 4.9m a burial chamber measuring 2.1m by 1.2m was discovered, containing a skeleton and a `helmet, which was so corroded by rust that it fell to pieces on the slightest touch'. The noticeboard is excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath it 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:

32371

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Rudder, S, A New History of Gloucestershire, (1779), 657-8
O`Neil, H E, Grinsell, L V, Proc of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Arch Soc in Gloucestershire Barrows, Vol. LXXIX, (1960), 76

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