Ancient Monuments

History on the Ground

This site is entirely user-supported. See how you can help.

Bowl barrow and pillbox on Cherry Garden Hill

A Scheduled Monument in Folkestone, Kent

We don't have any photos of this monument yet. Why don't you be the first to send us one?

Upload Photo »

Approximate Location Map
Large Map »

If Google Street View is available, the image is from the best available vantage point looking, if possible, towards the location of the monument. Where it is not available, the satellite view is shown instead.

Coordinates

Latitude: 51.0989 / 51°5'56"N

Longitude: 1.1527 / 1°9'9"E

OS Eastings: 620831.672718

OS Northings: 138014.979743

OS Grid: TR208380

Mapcode National: GBR V0H.47W

Mapcode Global: FRA F696.WDK

Entry Name: Bowl barrow and pillbox on Cherry Garden Hill

Scheduled Date: 28 July 1939

Last Amended: 9 June 1995

Source: Historic England

Source ID: 1011771

English Heritage Legacy ID: 25472

County: Kent

Civil Parish: Folkestone

Traditional County: Kent

Lieutenancy Area (Ceremonial County): Kent

Details

The monument includes a Bronze Age bowl barrow and a pillbox situated on a
steeply sided spur which projects from a ridge of the Kent Downs. The bowl
barrow has a roughly circular mound 20m in diameter and around 1.3m high,
which has been altered by the deposition of additional, excavated material
around its circumference at a later date. The mound is surrounded by a ditch
from which material used to construct the barrow was excavated. This has
become infilled over the years, but survives as a buried feature c.2m wide.
The centre of the barrow was disturbed by the construction of a pillbox during
World War II, when a primary, crouched human burial was discovered. A second
burial was also found towards the edge of the barrow mound.
The pillbox, which would have been used mainly as a look-out post, is a low,
hexagonal structure built of reinforced concrete, with a diameter of c.7m. It
has a lobbyed entrance on its southern side, and each of its six faces are
pierced by rectangular machine gun slits. Both the entrance and the gun slits
have since been blocked with modern concrete.

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 on Cherry Garden Hill has been been the subject of
some disturbance caused by the construction of the later pillbox, it survives
reasonably well, and partial excavation has demonstrated that it will contain
archaeological remains and environmental evidence relating to the monument and
the landscape in which it was constructed.
Pillboxes are small, squat defensive buildings constructed to provide
protection for vulnerable areas threatened with German invasion during both
World Wars, but particularly during World War II. There are around ten main
forms, of which type 24, the irregular hexagonal form, is the most common.
They are especially representative of World War II defensive structures;
around 18,000 are thought to have been built nationally between 1939-1945, of
which c.6,000 may remain.
Despite some later disturbance, the pillbox on Cherry Garden Hill survives
comparatively well, and illustrates the importance of the Downs to the north
of the particularly vulnerable Kent coast as one of the first lines of defence
during World War II.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Stebbing, W P D, Cave, J E, 'Archaeologia Cantiana' in Cherry Garden Hill Tumulus, Folkestone, , Vol. 56, (1943), 28-33

Source: Historic England

Other nearby scheduled monuments

AncientMonuments.uk is an independent online resource and is not associated with any government department. All government data published here is used under licence. Please do not contact AncientMonuments.uk for any queries related to any individual ancient or schedued monument, planning permission related to scheduled monuments or the scheduling process itself.

AncientMonuments.uk is a Good Stuff website.