Details

The site includes the remains of a long barrow situated on the narrow neck of
a prominent chalk ridge towards the west end of Cherhill Down. The immediate
area around the site has been extensively disturbed by quarry activity and the
appearance of the monument has suffered as a result. However a substantial
mound 31m long by 20m wide and up to 2.2m high survives. It lies orientated
east to west along the ridge top. This appears to represent the truncated
tail of the barrow mound, the eastern portion having been levelled as a
standing monument by surface quarrying. The overall length of the mound,
estimated from the dimensions of the surviving portion, would appear to have
been some 52m. There are no surface indications of flanking ditches, from
which material was normally obtained in the construction of such monuments.
It is possible that they were destroyed by slope erosion; alternatively the
extreme steepness and limited width of the ridge at this position may have
necessitated a less orthodox method of construction, for example, the scraping
of earth from areas to the east and west of the monument. The monument was
partially excavated in 1864; finds included three skeletons in a sarsen stone
chamber, pottery, flints and a quern stone.

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

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.

The 180 long barrows of Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire form one of the
densest and most important concentrations of this class of monument in the
country. Despite disturbance to the Cherhill Down long barrow, both by
quarrying and by partial excavation in 1864, some aspects of the monument
survive comparatively well, providing potential for the recovery of
archaeological and environmental evidence relating both to the monument and
the landscape in which it was constructed.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Other
SU 06 NW 105, SU 06 NW 105,

Source: Historic England