Details

Rainsborough long barrow lies 60m to the north west of Rainsborough hill fort
and approximately 500m west of Camp Farm at Charlton.
The long barrow lies on the side of a north facing hill and consists of a
sub-rectangular mound, 30m long from east to west and 4m wide from north to
south. On its upper, south side, the mound stands 0.25m high, and on the
lower side the mound is 1m above the adjacent ground level. On the north side
of the barrow dry stone walling was set into part of the mound in the 18th
century.
Although no longer visible at ground level, flanking quarry ditches, from
which material was quarried during the construction of the monument, run
parallel to the mound on its north and south side. These have become infilled
over the years but survive as buried features c.2m wide.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
It includes a 4 metre boundary around the archaeological features,
considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

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 long
barrows are recorded in England. 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.

Although partly altered by wall building, this long barrow is essentially
undisturbed and will retain archaeological evidence within the mound and
ditches.

Source: Historic England