Summary

Long barrow 1160m east of Luckley Farm.

Source: Historic England

Details

This record was the subject of a minor enhancement on 10 July 2015. The record has been generated from an "old county number" (OCN) scheduling record. These are monuments that were not reviewed under the Monuments Protection Programme and are some of our oldest designation records.

The monument includes a long barrow situated on the summit of a ridge which forms the watershed between the valleys of the Rivers Dikler and Evenlode. The barrow survives as a rectangular mound orientated from north west to south east measuring up to 66m long, 25m wide and 1.4m high. Traces of a coverstone are visible on the surface and the side ditches survive as buried features.

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 examples of long barrows and long cairns, their counterparts in the uplands, are recorded nationally. 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.

Despite reduction in the height of the mound through past cultivation the long barrow 1160m east of Luckley Farm survives well and will contain archaeological and environmental evidence relating to its construction, longevity, territorial significance, social organisation, funerary and ritual practices and overall landscape context.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Other
PastScape 330120

Source: Historic England