Long Barrow north of Castlethorpe

Summary

A neolithic long barrow visible as cropmarks and soil marks showing a roughly oval enclosure ditch with a soil mark indicative of an internal mound.

Reasons for Designation

The long barrow north of Castlethorpe is scheduled for the following principal reasons:

* Survival: as a clearly defined cropmark and soil mark representing the burial practices, beliefs and social organisation amongst early prehistoric communities;

* 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 insight into the lives and deaths of early prehistoric communities in this country.

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 north of Castlethorpe survives as a cropmark and soilmark, first identified from aerial photographs in 1997.

Details

Principal elements: a Neolithic long barrow visible as cropmarks and soil marks showing a roughly oval enclosure ditch with a soil mark indicative of an internal mound. Aligned east to west, the barrow is located north of Castlethorpe, about 330m north of The Mount (Grade II, NHLE 1309948) in Castlethorpe. It lies on land that slopes gently to the east at a height of 17m AOD.

Description: the barrow is not visible in the landscape but is apparent as a cropmark and soilmark on aerial photographs centred at SE 9820 0816. These show a probable long barrow with an oval to trapeziform-shaped enclosure measuring roughly 50m by 22m. The barrow is defined by a complete circuit of ditch approximately 2.5m in width and with internal dimensions of 45m by 15m. An internal bank is partially visible at the eastern end of the long barrow as a paler soilmark on aerial photographs.

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

The west end of the barrow is clipped by a linear feature associated with a former field boundary removed between 1967 and 1975, now a grass footpath through the field.

A later prehistoric or Roman rectilinear enclosure is visible on aerial photographs approximately 100m to the north-east of the long barrow. This may be associated but certainly indicates a continued use and respect of the landscape into later periods. The rectilinear enclosure is not included in the scheduling of the long barrow.

Sources

Books and journals
Jones, D, Long barrows and neolithic elongated enclosures in Lincolnshire: an analysis of the air photographic evidence in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, Vol. 64, (1998), 83-114
Field, D, Earthen Long Barrows, The Earliest Monuments in the British Isles, (2006)
Woodward, A, British Barrows A Matter of Life and Death, (2000)
Last, J, Beyond the Grave, New Perspectives on Barrows, (2007)

Other
Parker, N, Lincolnshire long barrows project report 7400, Heritage Lincolnshire, AMIE UID 1094439, 13 December 2018

End of official list entry

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