Details

The monument includes a Bronze Age round barrow on Painsthorpe Wold, one of a
number of similar monuments in this area. The barrow mound is 1.75m in height
and has a diameter of 20m. Although no longer visible at ground level, a
ditch, from which material was excavated during the construction of the
monument, surrounds the mound. This has become in-filled over the years but
survives as a buried feature 3m in width. The barrow was partially excavated
by J R Mortimer in 1877. He found that the mound had been disturbed some
eleven years earlier when the farmer buried three cattle in the mound. Despite
the 1866 disturbance, Mortimer found an Anglo-Saxon burial in the mound and a
much earlier primary inhumation in a grave cut into the chalk of the wold.

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 disturbance in 1866 and partial excavation by Mortimer, this barrow
survives reasonably well and will retain significant archaeological and
environmental evidence. It is particularly unusual in that it was reused for
at least one burial in the Saxon period. The monument is part of a wider group
on Painsthorpe Wold, which together will increase our knowledge of both
prehistoric and early medieval burial practices.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Mortimer, J R , Forty Years Researches in British and Saxon Burial Mounds of East Yorkshire, (1905)

Source: Historic England