Details

The monument includes a levelled pond barrow located 50m north of the A344,
west of The Cursus on a gentle south facing slope on Winterbourne Stoke Down.
The barrow is now difficult to identify on the ground but the surrounding
outer bank of the pond is visible as a circular chalk spread on aerial
photographs from which the overall diameter is calculated to be 20m.

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

A small number of areas in southern England appear to have acted as foci for
ceremonial and ritual activity during the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods.
Two of the best known and the earliest recognised areas are around Avebury and
Stonehenge, now jointly designated as a World Heritage Site.
The area of chalk downland which surrounds Stonehenge contains one of the
densest and most varied groups of Neolithic and Bronze Age field monuments in
Britain. Included within the area are Stonehenge itself, the Stonehenge
cursus, the Durrington Walls henge, and a variety of burial monuments, many
grouped into cemeteries.
The area has been the subject of archaeological research since the 18th
century when Stukeley recorded many of the monuments and partially excavated a
number of the burial mounds. More recently, the collection of artefacts from
the surfaces of ploughed fields has supplemented the evidence for ritual and
burial by revealing the intensity of contemporary settlement and land-use.
In view of the importance of the area, all ceremonial and sepulchral monuments
of this period which retain significant archaeological remains are identified
as nationally important.

Pond barrows are ceremonial or funerary monuments of the Early to Middle
Bronze Age, with most examples dating to between 1500 and 1000 BC. The term
`barrow' is something of a misnomer as, rather than a mound, they were
constructed as regular circular depressions with an embanked rim and
occasionally an outer ditch or entrance through the bank. They occur either in
isolation or within round barrow cemeteries. Pond barrows are the rarest form
of round barrow with about 60 examples recorded nationally, and a distribution
largely confined to Wiltshire and Dorset, many of which are in the Stonehenge
area. As few examples have been excavated, they have a particularly high
value for future study. Due to their rarity, all identified pond barrows will
normally be considered to be of national importance.
Despite having been levelled by cultivation, the pond barrow 50m north of the
A344 on Winterbourne Stoke Down survives in the form of buried features and
will contain archaeological remains and environmental evidence relating to the
monument and the landscape in which it was constructed.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Other

E/RC8 CM 145, Cambridge University Collection,

Source: Historic England