Ancient Monuments

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Bowl barrow 450m east of The Diamond south of the A303

A Scheduled Monument in Wilsford cum Lake, Wiltshire

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Coordinates

Latitude: 51.1673 / 51°10'2"N

Longitude: -1.8427 / 1°50'33"W

OS Eastings: 411092.854502

OS Northings: 140905.355

OS Grid: SU110409

Mapcode National: GBR 3YP.NYG

Mapcode Global: VHB5B.0XPJ

Entry Name: Bowl barrow 450m east of The Diamond south of the A303

Scheduled Date: 22 March 1995

Source: Historic England

Source ID: 1011709

English Heritage Legacy ID: 26263

County: Wiltshire

Civil Parish: Wilsford cum Lake

Traditional County: Wiltshire

Lieutenancy Area (Ceremonial County): Wiltshire

Church of England Parish: Woodford Valley with Archers Gate

Church of England Diocese: Salisbury

Details

The monument includes a levelled bowl barrow located 450m east of The
Diamond plantation situated on a gentle slope on Wilsford Down with views
north east towards Normanton Down and south east towards the North Kite
earthwork. The barrow mound is now difficult to identify on the ground but is
surrounded by a ditch from which material was quarried during its
construction. This has become infilled over the years but survives as a buried
feature visible on aerial photographs from which the overall diameter is
calculated to be 20m.

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 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, 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 variety of burial practices. There are over
10,000 surviving bowl barrows recorded nationally and at least 320 in the
Stonehenge area. This group of monuments will provide important information
on the development of this area during the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age
periods.

Despite having been levelled by cultivation, the bowl barrow 450m east of the
The Diamond will contain archaeological remains and environmental evidence
relating to the monument and the landscape in which it was constructed. Aerial
photographs have shown that the ditch fills survive undisturbed, while
deposits located on the Bronze Age ground surface will survive beneath the
area disturbed by cultivation.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Other
2- AP Transcription and Analysis, John Samuals Archaeological Consultants, A 303 - Amesbury to Berwick Down, (1993)

Source: Historic England

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