Grans barrow: a long barrow 880m west of Down Farm

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 180 long barrows of Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset form the densest and one of the most important concentrations of monuments of this type in the country. Grans barrow is important as it survives particularly well and is one of three long barrows surviving in the area. Such clusters are significant as they give an indication of the intensity with which areas were settled during the Neolithic period. With no evidence for formal excavation of the monument, the site has considerable potential, both for the recovery of archaeological and environmental evidence.

Details

The monument includes a long barrow conspicuously sited at the top of a north-facing slope. The mound is orientated SSE-NNW and tapers in plan with the broader and higher end facing SSE. It is 58m long, 19m wide and rises to a height of 2.3m above the berms which survive to a width of 8m. The ditches, from which mound material was quarried, average 4m wide and are curved in plan, bending in towards the mound at the north end. Although no longer visible at ground level, they survive as buried features and have been located both by magnetic survey and aerial photography. The mound is situated 100m south east of Knap barrow and is visible from a third long barrow at Duck's Nest, both of which are the subject of separate schedulings.

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:

12089

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Smith, I F, Long Barrows in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, (1979), 52-3

End of official list entry

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