Details

The monument includes a long barrow set on a south-west facing slope in an
area of undulating chalk downland. It is rectangular in plan and orientated
ESE-WNW. The barrow mound is 85m long, 25m wide and 1.8m high. Flanking the
barrow mound but separated from it at the west end by a level berm 5m wide,
are ditches from which material was quarried during construction of the
monument. These have become partly infilled over the years but survive as
earthworks 8m wide and up to 1m deep.

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, Wiltshire and Dorset form the densest and
one of the most significant concentrations of monuments of this type in the
country. The Pertwood Down barrow survives well and has potential for the
recovery of archaeological remains and environmental evidence relating to the
period in which the monument was constructed.

Source: Historic England