Summary

Three bowl barrows 450m south west of Ringstead Barn.

Source: Historic England

Details

This record was the subject of a minor enhancement on 17 December 2015. This 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.

This monument, which falls into three areas, includes three bowl barrows situated at wide intervals along the summit of a very prominent coastal ridge with wide reaching sea views. The barrows survive as circular mounds surrounded by buried quarry ditches from which the construction material was derived. The barrow mounds vary in size from 14m up to 15.5m in diameter and from 1m up to 1.5m high. The westernmost has been cut by a later concrete gun emplacement set onto its summit.

Further archaeological remains in the vicinity are not included because they have not been formally assessed.

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. 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. Despite the subsequent re-use of one barrow as a gun emplacement and some reduction in the heights of the other mounds through past cultivation, the three bowl barrows 450m south west of Ringstead Barn survive comparatively well and will contain archaeological and environmental evidence relating to their construction, relative chronologies, territorial significance, social organisation, ritual and funerary practices, adaptive re-use and overall landscape context.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Other
PastScape Monument No:-454307

Source: Historic England