Details

The monument includes a long barrow set on level ground close to a tributary
of the River Avon. It is rectangular in plan and orientated east-west. The
barrow mound is 55m long, 25m wide and 1.5m high. A drystone entrance on the
south side of the mound leads into a small chamber c.2m square while two
further chambers are recorded on the north side of the mound. Although no
longer visible at ground level flanking ditches, from which material was
quarried during construction of the monument, run parallel to the north and
south sides of the mound. These have become infilled over the years but
survive as buried features c.3m wide.
The site has been partially excavated, finds including the scattered bones of
two adults in a chamber on the north side of the mound, nine skeletons in a
chamber on the NW side and eleven skeletons in a further chamber.

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. Despite partial excavation in the past, the Lanhill barrow survives
well and has potential for the recovery of both archaeological remains and
environmental evidence relating to the landscape in which the monument was
constructed.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
'Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine' in Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine: Volume 3, , Vol. 3, (), 67-86

Source: Historic England