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Latitude: 51.687 / 51°41'13"N
Longitude: -2.2024 / 2°12'8"W
OS Eastings: 386101.450296
OS Northings: 198714.693089
OS Grid: ST861987
Mapcode National: GBR 1NC.211
Mapcode Global: VH954.SV0L
Entry Name: Long barrow 100m north of Oldfield Wood
Scheduled Date: 18 January 1949
Last Amended: 9 August 1994
Source: Historic England
Source ID: 1009161
English Heritage Legacy ID: 22910
County: Gloucestershire
Civil Parish: Avening
Traditional County: Gloucestershire
Lieutenancy Area (Ceremonial County): Gloucestershire
Church of England Parish: Avening Holy Cross
Church of England Diocese: Gloucester
The monument includes a long barrow situated on a plateau 100m north of
Oldfield Wood in an area of the Cotswold Hills.
The monument has a mound composed of small stones. It is orientated south east
to north west, with maximum dimensions of 44m by 30m and a maxmimum height of
c.0.45m. The mound is now crossed by a stone boundary wall orientated north
east to south west, 17m from the western end of the barrow. On the western
side of the boundary wall the mound has a maximum height of c.0.25m. Flanking
the mound on either side is a quarry ditch from which material was taken
during the construction of the monument. These ditches are no longer visible
at ground level as they have become infilled over the years, although they
will survive as buried features c.5m wide.
Excluded from the scheduling are the fence posts relating to the field
boundary, although the drystone wall and the ground beneath all these features
is included.
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
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 long
barrows are recorded in England. 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 its height by cultivation, the long barrow 100m north of
Oldfield Wood survives comparatively well and will contain archaeological and
environmental evidence relating to the monument and the landscape in which it
was constructed.
This monument forms part of a wider group of long barrows commonly referred to
as the Cotswold Severn type, named after the area in which they occur.
Source: Historic England
Other
Mention of interpretation by Witts,
Source: Historic England
Other nearby scheduled monuments