Details

The monument includes the remains of a small bowl barrow situated on the high
point of a rounded prominence on The Long Mynd. The barrow is visible as an
oval mound 8.5m north-west to south-east by 7m transversely and stands up to
0.9m high. The south-western side has been cut by the line of the metalled
road crossing the hill top at this point and the central area of the mound is
hollowed to a depth of 0.4m as a result of exploration at sometime in the
past. Although no longer visible as a surface feature, a ditch, from which
material was quarried during the construction of the monument, surrounds the
mound. This has been destroyed around the south-west side by the construction
of the roadway but will survive around the remainder of the barrow as a buried
feature some 1.5m wide.

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.

Though the barrow 500m ESE of Boiling Well is small, has been disturbed in its
central area and truncated along its western edge, it was probably never much
larger than it is at present and it is a good example of this class of round
barrow. The monument will retain primary archaeological deposits and
environmental evidence preserved on the old land surface sealed beneath the
barrow mound and in the surviving portion of the ditch fill. It is one of
several such monuments on The Long Mynd and, as such, contributes information
relating to the intensity of settlement and the nature of land-use occurring
in this area of upland during the Bronze Age.

Source: Historic England