Details

The monument includes a long barrow situated in the Cotswolds, on a gentle
south facing slope with views over a valley to the south, west and east. The
barrow, which is sometimes known as the Oak Piece long barrow, has a mound
sub-rectangular in plan and orientated east-west. The site was recorded in
1939 and, when surveyed in 1960, was found to have a mound with maximum
dimensions of 44m by 18m. The barrow mound is now visible as a ridge c.0.6m
high with dimensions of 25m by 15m.
A small excavation of the mound in 1916 revealed that it was composed of small
stones associated with occasional flint flakes.
The mound is flanked on each side by a ditch from which material was quarried
during the construction of the monument. These are no longer visible at ground
level, as they have become infilled over the years, but will survive as buried
features c.5m wide.

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 examples of
long barrows and long cairns, their counterparts in the uplands, are recorded
nationally. 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.

Despite partial disturbance of the mound by prospecting and ploughing, the
long barrow 500m SSE of Guiting Hill Farm survives comparatively well and will
contain archaeological and environmental evidence relating to the monument and
the landscape in which it was constructed.
This barrow belongs to a wider group of similar monuments commonly referred to
as the Cotswold-Severn type, named after the area in which they occur.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Other
Mention of flint find by Westerling,
Mention of investigation by Peachy,

Source: Historic England