Group of four bowl barrows 660m north of Warhill Cottage

Overview

Heritage Category: Scheduled Monument

List Entry Number: 1019115

Date first listed: 18-Jan-1966

Date of most recent amendment: 06-Oct-2000

Location

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

National Park: SOUTH DOWNS

National Grid Reference: SU 68197 25736

Summary

Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.

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.

The group of four bowl barrows 660m north of Warhill Cottage survive well despite some later damage caused by modern farming, and can be expected to retain important archaeological remains and environmental evidence relating to the barrows and the landscape in which they were constructed. The monument's close spatial association with the sites of two additional round barrows situated to the south east indicates it may have formed a component of a larger round barrow cemetery. Such cemeteries typically contain between 5 and 30 individual barrows and are known to have been constructed throughout the Bronze Age period, between 2000 and 700 BC.

History

Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.

Details

The monument includes a group of four bowl barrows of late Neolithic or Bronze Age date situated on an apron of flat, low lying ground between the A272 and the base of War Hill. The barrows are tightly clustered and may originally have formed the core component of a more extensive round barrow cemetery arranged around the toe of the hill. Although occupying an apparently inconspicuous location, the monument would have been prominently visible from across the valley to the north east, where a coaxial field system, probably dating to the same period, has been identified from aerial photographs. The two most substantial barrows lie at the centre of the group and are joined near the base, possibly having been constructed together as a twin barrow, with a slight trace of a common surrounding ditch on the eastern side. Both mounds are circular and steep sided, 25m to 27m in diameter and 2.5m to 2.7m high. They have flattened or slightly hollowed tops, indicative of possible later excavation. The two other barrows flank the central pair to the east and south, separated from it by distances of four to five metres. They are much less prominent, both surviving as low, flat topped, circular mounds, 25m in diameter and 0.3m to 0.4m high. Neither has any trace of a surrounding ditch, although both of these barrows appear to have been lowered and spread by modern ploughing, and such ditches, from which material would have been obtained for the mounds' construction, will survive as buried features, infilled by the later use of the site.

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: 32557

Legacy System: RSM

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 Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.