Details

The monument includes a long barrow north east of Winterbourne Stoke
crossroads, situated on a south west-north east ridge and having extensive
views to the south east across Wilsford Down and Normanton Down. The long
barrow is orientated south west-north east along the ridge and forms the
origin and focal point of a linear round barrow cemetery which extends some
500m along the ridge to the north east and contains a total of 22 round
barrows.
The barrow mound is 95m in length, 22m wide, and 2.5m high. It is flanked on
the north west and south east by ditches running the length of the mound from
which material was quarried during its construction. The north west ditch is
1m deep and c.8m wide. The south east ditch is visible in part, having become
largely infilled over the years, but its full width is visible as a vegetation
mark on aerial photographs from which it is calculated to be c.10m wide. The
long barrow is therefore 95m long and 40m wide. Partial excavation in the 19th
century revealed a primary male inhumation with a flint implement, and six
secondary inhumations with a plain food vessel 0.75m from the top of the
mound.
The metalled surface of the A360 which covers the southern edge of the barrow,
is excluded from the scheduling, but the ground beneath it is included.

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 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. Long barrows were constructed as earthen or drystone
mounds often 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 it is probable that long barrows acted as important
ritual sites for local communities over a considerable period of time.
Some 500 long barrows and long cairns, their counterparts in the uplands, are
recorded in England of which at least nine survive in the Stonehenge area.
These represent an important group for understanding the historical context
within which Stonehenge developed during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze
Age periods.

The long barrow north east of Winterbourne Stoke crossroads survives well and
forms the focal point from which the linear round barrow cemetery to the north
east developed. Partial excavation has shown that it contains archaeological
remains and environmental evidence relating to the monument and the landscape
in which it was constructed.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Grinsell, LV, The Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume V, (1957), 146
Thurnam, J, 'Archaeologia' in On Ancient British Barrows, , Vol. 43, (1870), 196,198

Source: Historic England