Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow situated on a low gravel terrace which
separates Benson's Fen to the west from Wimblington Fen to the east, some 300m
to the north west of the junction between Byall Fen Drove and a track known as
Gypsy Drove. The barrow mound is circular in plan, measuring 30m in diameter
and surviving to a height of approximately 0.75m. Material for the
construction of the barrow was quarried from a ditch at the foot of the mound.
Over the years this ditch has become infilled, although it remained visible as
a slight depression in the 1940's when the monument stood in pasture, and is
still visible as a dark soil mark in the ploughed field. The barrow is
apparently unexcavated, although pottery fragments from an urn and a thumb
pot, both of Bronze Age date, were recovered from the ploughed surface of the
mound in 1978.

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.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

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.

Although the bowl barrow situated to the west of Honey Hill Farm has been
disturbed by ploughing, the archaeological remains (including burials) below
the mound and the fills of the surrounding ditch will remain substantially
intact, providing evidence relating to the construction of the monument,
the burial practices of the generations who used it and the landscape in which
it was set.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
'The Fenland Project No.6: The SW Cambridgeshire Fenlands' in East Anglian Archaeology, , Vol. 56, (1992), 96-103
Other
Fox, C: report 1949. OW 819, LS, 06049 Tumulus SW of Honey Farm, (1985)
Hall, D: site visit report 1978, LS, 06049/09462 Tumulus SW of Honey Farm, (1985)

Source: Historic England