Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow, situated on a low lying terrace of Lower
Chalk to the north of the River Wylye on the east side of Warminster.
The mound of the barrow is 1.5m high, and 18m across from north to south and
17m from east to west. The profile of the barrow is irregular due to
disturbance and the banking up of earth around the mound.
The mound is surrounded by a ditch from which material was quarried during its
construction. This has become infilled over the years but will survive as a
buried feature 3m wide.
The barrow is shown on a map of the archaeological sites around Warminster
produced by the antiquarian Sir Richard Colt-Hoare in 1812.
The long barrow 70m to the north west and a bowl barrow 90m to the south are
subject of separate schedulings.

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.

Despite some disturbance, the bowl barrow 85m north of Bishopstrow House
survives well. It is marked on a map of 1812 but there is no record that
it has ever been excavated. It therefore has a high potential for the survival
of archaeological and environmental evidence relating to the barrow's
construction and use, and to the contemporary landscape.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Colt Hoare, R, The Ancient History of Wiltshire: Volume I, (1812), 51

Source: Historic England