Ancient Monuments

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Bowl barrow 700m south-east of Windmill Hill

A Scheduled Monument in Avebury, Wiltshire

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Coordinates

Latitude: 51.4372 / 51°26'13"N

Longitude: -1.8651 / 1°51'54"W

OS Eastings: 409471.60613

OS Northings: 170919.729403

OS Grid: SU094709

Mapcode National: GBR 3VC.WSW

Mapcode Global: VHB44.M4BK

Entry Name: Bowl barrow 700m south-east of Windmill Hill

Scheduled Date: 11 May 1994

Source: Historic England

Source ID: 1008458

English Heritage Legacy ID: 21709

County: Wiltshire

Civil Parish: Avebury

Traditional County: Wiltshire

Lieutenancy Area (Ceremonial County): Wiltshire

Details

The monument includes one of a pair of bowl barrows, located on a gentle south
facing slope, overlooking the village of Avebury. The barrow has a mound 30m
in diameter and 0.9m high. Surrounding this, but no longer visible at ground
level, is a ditch from which material was quarried during the construction of
the monument. This has become infilled over the years but survives as a buried
feature c.3m wide.
The fence crossing the monument is excluded from the scheduling but the ground
beneath is included.

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 Early Bronze Age
periods. Two of the best known and earliest recognised, with references in the
17th century, are around Avebury and Stonehenge, now jointly designated as a
World Heritage Site. In the Avebury area, the henge monument itself, the West
Kennet Avenue, the Sanctuary, West Kennet long barrow, Windmill Hill
causewayed enclosure and the enigmatic Silbury Hill are well-known. Whilst the
other Neolithic long barrows, the many Bronze Age round barrows and other
associated sites are less well-known, together they define one of the richest
and most varied areas of Neolithic and Bronze Age ceremonial monuments in the
country. 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, normally 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 and around 320 in the Avebury area. This group of
monuments will provide important information on the development of this area
during the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age periods. All surviving examples are
considered worthy of protection.

Despite disturbance caused by cultivation, the bowl barrow 700m south-east of
Windmill Hill survives as a recognisable earthwork and contains archaeological
remains and environmental evidence relating to the monument and the landscape
in which it was constructed.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Other
RCHM(E), NAR No.: SU 07 SE 5, (1973)

Source: Historic England

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