Neolithic or Bronze Age Barrow
The site of a possible barrow which dates to between the Early Neolithic and Late Bronze Age periods. It is visible as an earthwork and is situated 850m south of The Hollows.
1 The long mound just N of the King Stone was thought by Stukeley and many others (notably Crawford) to be a long barrow. Ravenhill’s excavation appeared to suggest that it was natural. The mound is c70m long, 40m wide and about 1m in elevation. A further 20m extension to the E has been quarried away. In 1982 a 23m long trial trench was dug which indicated that the long mound was largely natural, but that a round cairn had been placed on top of it. Further excavation in 1983 confirmed the shape and located a central cist. The cairn is 17m in diameter and built largely of quarried limestone. The cist is built of large, heavily-weathered limestone slabs. The shape of the cairn is uncertain but the capstone is in place and it is unlikely that the cairn has been robbed. Traces of a probable funeral pyre and a child’s tooth were found on the NW of the cairn. The charcoal produced a radiocarbon date of 1540 +/- 70bp. On the SW of the cairn a second cremation deposit was located. This was covered by a small mini-cairn of stone 2m long and 1.3m wide. This produced a radiocarbon date of 1420 +/- 40bc. The mini-cairn had been extended to the NW and SW and this stone contained indeterminate Neolithic/Bronze Age sherds and a few fragments of cremated bone. Three hollows in the top of the cairn contained cremations, one possibly associated with Beaker sherds. The long mound was a natural mound used as a prominent position for a round cairn.
2 Plan.
3 Scheduling revision.
- For the sources of these notes, see the
- Timetrail record
- produced by the Historic Environment Record.
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