Round barrow 300m north of Rye House Farm

Reasons for Designation

Round barrows 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 mounds, sometimes ditched, which covered single or multiple burials. They occur either in isolation or grouped as cemeteries and often acted as a focus of 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 examples recorded nationally (many more have already been destroyed), occurring across most of Britain, including the Wessex area where it is often possible to classify them more closely, for example as bowl or bell barrows. Often occupying prominent locations, they are a major historic element in the modern landscape and their considerable variation in 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.

Despite being disturbed by cultivation, the round barrow 300m north of Rye House Farm will contain archaeological information relating to the monument and the landscape in which it was built.

Details

The monument includes the buried and earthwork remains of a prehistoric burial mound sited on top of a low rise on the eastern side of the River Rye, which forms a gentle north east to south west ridge. Another round barrow, the subject of a separate scheduling, also lies on this low ridge, 140m to the NNE. With the removal of intervening vegetation, the monument is thought to be intervisible with the line of three round barrows 1.6km to the north west and may also have been intervisible with the large Pockley Gates round barrow 1.5km to the NNE. The monument is sited on nearly level ground, sloping very gently away to the south east and slightly more steeply to the north west. It is on the very edge of a railway cutting for the now dismantled line to Helmsley built in 1870-72. In 1963 it was recorded as being 100ft (30.4m) in diameter and 2ft (0.6m) high, the north eastern part being under cultivation. The barrow still survives as an upstanding earthwork 24m in diameter. The north eastern two thirds has continued to be ploughed regularly and now stands up to 0.4m high. The edge of the south western third of the barrow was destroyed by the construction of the railway cutting, but a 4m wide strip on the edge of the cutting survives undisturbed by ploughing, standing 0.5m high. Excavation of other examples of round barrows in the region have shown that even where no encircling depression is discernible on the modern ground surface, ditches immediately around the outside of the mound frequently survive as infilled features, containing additional archaeological deposits. A margin to allow for such an infilled ditch up to 3m wide around the original 27m diameter extent of the barrow is thus also included within the monument. Such excavations have also shown that archaeological remains can survive undisturbed under the plough soil. For instance the primary burial of a round barrow was typically placed in a pit cut into the original ground surface before the construction of the covering mound and secondary burials have also been found in pits cut into ditches encircling barrows.

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:

32709

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
McDonnell, J, A History of Helmsley Rievaulx and District, (1963)

End of official list entry

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