Neolithic Long Barrow 550m WNW of Water Tower Cottage

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1018891
Date first listed:: 16-Apr-1999

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1018891
Date first listed:: 16-Apr-1999
Date of most recent amendment:: 24-May-2024
Location Description:: West of Maidenwell, Louth, Lincolnshire. Centred at TF3160979313.

Location

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

County:: Lincolnshire
District:: East Lindsey (District Authority)
Parish:: Maidenwell
National Grid Reference:: TF3160979313

Summary

The earthwork and buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow.

Reasons for Designation

The long barrow 550m WNW of Water Tower Cottage is scheduled for the following principal reasons:

* Survival: as the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow identified on geophysical survey and visible on aerial photography as a cropmark;

* Potential: for the buried archaeological deposits which retain considerable potential to provide evidence relating to social organisation and demographics, cultural associations, human development, disease, diet, and death rituals. Buried environmental evidence can also inform us about the landscape in which the barrows were constructed;

* Period: as one of very few monument types dating to the early prehistoric, it is highly representative of the period;

* Rarity: as an example of a monument type which is rare nationally and one of very few monument types to offer us insights into the lives and deaths of early prehistoric communities in this country:

* Group value: for its close proximity to other contemporary or spatially related scheduled monuments, including the long barrow 870m ENE of Ruckland House (NHLE 1015203) and the long barrow 850m ENE of Ruckland House (NHLE 1013913), both approximately 2.7km to the east-south-east. They all form part of a nationally important concentration of long barrows in the Lincolnshire Wolds.

History

Long barrows and chambered tombs are the main forms of Neolithic funerary monument, constructed from before 3800 BC with new monuments continuing to be built throughout the 4th millennium BC. Where they are precisely dated it appears their primary use for burial rarely lasted longer than about 100 years. Generally comprising long, linear earthen mounds or stone cairns, often flanked by ditches, they can appear as distinctive features in the landscape. They measure up to about 100m in length, 35m in width and 4m in height, and are sometimes trapezoidal or oval in plan. Earthen long barrows are found mostly in southern and eastern England and are usually unchambered, although some examples have been found to contain timber mortuary structures. Regional variation in construction is generally a reflection of locally available resources. Megalithic or stone chambered tombs are most common in Scotland and Wales but are also found in those parts of England with ready access to the large stones and boulders from which they are constructed, especially the Cotswolds, the South-West and Kent. There are around 540 long barrows recorded nationally.

Long barrows of the Lincolnshire Wolds have been identified as a distinct regional grouping of monuments in which the flanking ditches are continued around the ends of the barrow mound, either continuously or broken by a single causeway towards one end. A small number survive as earthworks but the majority are known from crop marks and soil marks where no or very low mounds are evident on the surface. Not all Lincolnshire long barrows had mounds and our current understanding of Neolithic mortuary practices in this part of the country is that the large barrow mound was in fact the final phase of construction which was not reached by all monuments. Previously many of the sites where only the ditched enclosure is known have been interpreted as a barrow where the mound has been degraded or removed by subsequent agricultural activity. In some cases the ditched enclosure (mortuary enclosure) represents a monument which never developed a mound.

The long barrow 550m WNW of Water Tower Cottage was first identified as soilmarks on aerial photographs taken in 1971 and 1973. In April 1999 it was scheduled as part of the Monuments Protection Programme (MPP). Fieldwork and geophysical survey undertaken in 2018 as part of the Lincolnshire Long Barrows Project have revealed that the existing scheduled site is unfortunately mapped in the wrong position, the long barrow is actually located a little further to the south.

The monument was under cultivation with a crop of winter wheat at the time of survey (2018) and has been previously ploughed to a depth of 0.3m.

Details

Principal Elements: A long barrow aligned roughly east-west. It lies on the north side of Oslear’s Lane some 650m to the west of Maidenwell and approximately 900m north-north-west of Farforth. The monument lies near to the crest of the hill overlooking a dry valley that curves around the barrow from the south-west, through an un-named plantation to the north and then continuing to the north and north-east. The barrow overlooks the south-western part of this valley and sits at approximately 123m AOD.

Description: The barrow appears as an oblong chalky mark aligned west-north-west to east-south-east and measures 54m long and 20m wide at the eastern end, tapering to 15.5m at the western end. The eastern end is straight and traces of a ditch can be seen extending around this and part of the southern side of the mound. There are no visible earthwork remains. The barrow has been clearly defined using magnetometry.

Valuable archaeological deposits will be preserved on the buried ground surface and in the fills of the ditch. These will provide rare information concerning the dating and construction of the monument and the sequence of mortuary practices at the site. The same deposits will also retain environmental evidence illustrating the nature of the landscape in which the monument was set.

The long barrow is one of a dispersed group of similar monuments which are thought to be associated with the prehistoric trackway now known as the Bluestone Heath Road, and with the river valleys of the eastern Wolds. It forms part of the nationally significant concentration of long barrows in the Lincolnshire Wolds.

Extent of Scheduling: The scheduled area includes a 5m buffer zone around the barrow, which is considered necessary for the support and preservation of the monument.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 29733
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Field, D (Author), Earthen Long Barrows, The Earliest Monuments in the British Isles, (2006)
Last, J (Editor), Beyond the Grave, New Perspectives on Barrows, (2007)
Woodward, A, British Barrows A Matter of Life and Death, (2000)
Jones, D, 'Long Barrows and Neolithic Elongated Enclosures in Lincolnshire: An Analysis of the Air Photographic Evidence’' in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 64, (1998), 83-114
Websites
HER record on Lincolnshire Heritage Explorer , accessed 18 January 2024 from https://heritage-explorer.lincolnshire.gov.uk/Monument/MLI43169
Other
Oblique monochrome prints, TF3179/1 NMR 12724/75, (1995)

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.