Long barrow on Adlestrop Hill

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.

The long barrow on Adlestrop Hill is an unusual example of its class of monument and, despite some erosion from cultivation, it is known from partial excavation to contain archaeological remains providing information about Neolithic beliefs, economy and environment.

Details

The monument includes a long barrow, lying on a gentle south west facing slope below the crest of Adlestrop Hill. The barrow has an oval mound 26m long, orientated WSW-ENE, with a maximum width of 16m, although it now appears wider due to plough distortion. It reaches a maximum height of 0.8m at the uphill, eastern end and 1.5m at the downhill, western end. Traces of a quarry ditch are still visible around the western end of the mound and will survive in buried form, 4m wide, around the rest of the mound. At the east end of the mound the tops of three upright stone slabs that formed sides of a burial chamber are still visible. The barrow was partially excavated in 1935 and 1936 and then again, by Helen Donovan, in 1938. The excavations revealed the sub-rectangular burial chamber at the eastern end together with the fragmented remains of seven or eight inhumations. Professor Darvill has suggested that the barrow, in common with other Cotswold-Severn tombs, formerly possessed a forecourt at its eastern end. To the east of the barrow and extending for approximately 400m north west-south east are several large, grass covered, stone clearance heaps. These are not included in the scheduling.

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:

31182

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Darvill, T C, Vorda Research Series in The Megalithic Chambered Tombs of the Cotswold-Severn Region, Vol. 5, (1982), 9, 113

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