Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow set on a slight east-facing slope above
the floor of a dry valley in an area of undulating chalk downland. The
barrow mound is 3m high and 29m in diameter. Although no longer visible at
ground level, a ditch from which material was quarried during the
construction of the monument, surrounds the mound. This survives as a buried
feature c.3m wide. The diameter of mound and ditch together is 35m.
The monument forms part of a wider barrow cemetery which comprises five
other barrow mounds.

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 Rockley Plantation barrows survive well, despite afforestation, and have
good potential for the recovery of archaeological evidence for the nature
and duration of use of the monuments and the environment within which they
were constructed. Such barrow cemeteries give an indication of the
intensity with which areas were settled during the Bronze Age period as well
as the variety of beliefs and nature of social organisation present within
society at that time.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
'Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine' in Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine, , Vol. 49, (1958)

Source: Historic England