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Two bowl barrows and a saucer barrow 280m south of The Packway

A Scheduled Monument in Winterbourne Stoke, Wiltshire

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Coordinates

Latitude: 51.1977 / 51°11'51"N

Longitude: -1.8569 / 1°51'24"W

OS Eastings: 410095.90459

OS Northings: 144285.476597

OS Grid: SU100442

Mapcode National: GBR 3Y8.Z6V

Mapcode Global: VHB59.R5P5

Entry Name: Two bowl barrows and a saucer barrow 280m south of The Packway

Scheduled Date: 3 May 1995

Source: Historic England

Source ID: 1012168

English Heritage Legacy ID: 10241

County: Wiltshire

Civil Parish: Winterbourne Stoke

Traditional County: Wiltshire

Lieutenancy Area (Ceremonial County): Wiltshire

Church of England Parish: Winterbourne Stoke St Peter

Church of England Diocese: Salisbury

Details

The monument includes two bowl barrows and a saucer barrow aligned NNW - SSE
and situated on a natural spur some 280m south of the Packway and 500m WSW of
Fargo Road ammunition compound. All the barrows have been reduced in height by
ploughing and survive as slight earthworks. The mound of the southern bowl
barrow is visible as a slight rise formed by a chalk spread 11m in diameter.
This is surrounded by a ditch 2m wide which is visible as a dark band, giving
an overall diameter of 15m. The mound of the central bowl barrow is 0.2m high
and 20.5m in diameter surrounded by a ditch 3m wide, giving an overall
diameter of 26.5m. The ditches of both bowl barrows, from which material was
quarried during their construction, have become infilled over the years but
survive as buried features. The saucer barrow is now difficult to define on
the ground but from aerial photographs can be shown to have an overall
diameter of c.30m including a quarry ditch and outer bank.

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

A small number of areas in southern England appear to have acted as foci for
ceremonial and ritual activity during the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods.
Two of the best known and the earliest recognised areas are around Avebury and
Stonehenge, now jointly designated as a World Heritage Site.
The area of chalk downland which surrounds Stonehenge contains one of the
densest and most varied groups of Neolithic and Bronze Age field monuments in
Britain. Included within the area are Stonehenge itself, the Stonehenge
cursus, the Durrington Walls henge, and a variety of burial monuments, many
grouped into cemeteries.
The area has been the subject of archaeological research since the 18th
century when Stukeley recorded many of the monuments and partially excavated a
number of the burial mounds. More recently, the collection of artefacts from
the surfaces of ploughed fields has supplemented the evidence for ritual and
burial by revealing the intensity of contemporary settlement and land-use.
In view of the importance of the area, all ceremonial and sepulchral monuments
of this period which retain significant archaeological remains are identified
as nationally important.

Bowl barrows, the most numerous form of round barrow, are funerary monuments
dating from the Late Neolithic period to the Late Bronze Age. They were
constructed as earthen or rubble mounds, normally ditched, which covered
single or multiple burials. Often superficially similar, although differing
widely in size, they exhibit regional variations in form and a variety of
burial practices. Saucer barrows date from the Early Bronze Age. They occur
either in isolation or in round barrow cemeteries and were constructed as a
circular area of level ground defined by a bank and internal ditch and largely
occupied by a single low, squat mound covering one or more burials, often in a
pit. The burials, either inhumations or cremations, are sometimes accompanied
by pottery vessels, tools and personal ornaments. There are over 10,000
surviving bowl barrows recorded nationally and at least 320 in the Stonehenge
area. Saucer barrows are one of the rarest recognised forms of round barrow,
with about 60 examples nationally, at least ten of which are known from the
Stonehenge area.

Despite the reduced height of the saucer barrow and bowl barrows they will
contain archaeological remains and environmental evidence relating to the
monument and the landscape in which it was constructed.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
RCHME, , Stonehenge and its Environs, (1979), 3
RCHME, , Stonehenge and its Environs, (1979), 3
RCHME, , Stonehenge and its Environs, (1979), 3

Source: Historic England

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