Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow set below the crest of a scarp 330m east
of Batts Coombe Quarry and overlooking the Cheddar Gorge. It comprises a mound
9m in diameter and c.1m high at its highest point. Although no longer visible
from ground level a ditch, from which material was quarried during the
construction of the monument, surrounds the barrow mound. This has become
infilled over the years but survives as a buried feature c.2m wide. The
monument is the southernmost of three surviving of an original group of five
forming a linear barrow cemetery aligned on a north-south axis.

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.

The bowl barrow 330m east of Batts Coombe Quarry survives well, is relatively
undisturbed and has potential for the recovery of archaeological and
environmental evidence relating both to the monument and the landscape in
which it was constructed.
The importance of the monument is enhanced by its location in an area which
exhibits a concentration of contemporary burial monuments, thus giving an
indication of the nature and scale of human occupation during the Bronze Age
period.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Grinsell, L, 'Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeology and Natural Hist Soc' in Somerset Barrows Part II, , Vol. Vol 115, (1971), 97

Source: Historic England