Details

The monument includes two bowl barrows, aligned SW-NE and set on a slight
east-facing slope above the floor of a dry valley in an area of undulating
chalk downland. The western barrow mound is 3m high and 21m 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 barrow mound was partially
excavated by Brook in 1889. Finds included a cremation burial. Some 15m to
the east is a second bowl barrow. The mound is 1.5m high and 19m across
while surrounding it is a ditch, visible as an earthwork on all but the
north-east side, surviving to a depth of 0.5m and 4m wide.
The monument forms part of a wider barrow cemetery which comprises four
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 monument 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

Other
Report of the Marlborough College NHS, (1889)

Source: Historic England