Round barrow on Lealholm Moor, 600m north east of South View Farm

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.

Excavations of round barrows in the region have shown that they demonstrate a very wide range of burial rites from simple scatters of cremated material to coffin inhumations and cremations contained in urns, typically dating to the Bronze Age. A common factor is that barrows were normally used for more than one burial and that the primary burial was frequently on or below the original ground surface, often with secondary burials located within the body of the mound. Most barrows include a small number of grave goods. These are often small pottery food vessels, but stone, bone, jet and bronze items have also occasionally been found. The barrow is a well preserved example of one of the more complex barrows found on the moors. Its importance is further enhanced by the survival of a ring cairn, which is a rarer form of early-mid Bronze Age funerary monument, 80m to the west.

Details

The monument includes the buried and earthwork remains of a prehistoric burial mound on Lealholm Moor. The monument is prominently sited on top of the east-west ridge which links Danby Beacon and Lealholm Rigg and which thus forms Lealholm Moor. In profile the barrow is more complex than most in the area. It is formed by a 15m diameter mound, 1m high with a 10m diameter top, with a second 0.5m high mound sited on top of the first. This second mound is 8m in diameter and is positioned slightly off-centre to the south east from the centre of the main mound. As a result there is a berm, or step, in the barrow's profile on the north western side up to 2m wide, but on the south east side the two mounds merge into one. Sunk into the top of the upper mound there is a 5m by 2.5m depression 0.5m deep which is 3m by 1m at its base. Excavation of other barrows has shown that even where no encircling depression is discernible on the modern ground surfaces, ditches immediately around the outside of barrows frequently survive as infilled features, containing additional archaeological deposits.

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:

30183

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Smith, M J B, Excavated Bronze Age Burial Mounds of Durham and N' land., (1994)

End of official list entry

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