Details

The monument includes two bowl barrows, one upstanding and one levelled,
aligned broadly north east-south west, situated on Coneybury Hill 520m south
of the A303. The location has extensive views north west towards Stonehenge
and south east across the Avon Valley.
The most southerly of the two is known as King Barrow. The mound is 3.9m high,
25m in diameter and is surrounded by a ditch from which material was quarried
during its construction. This has become infilled over the years but survives
as a buried feature c.2.5m wide, giving the barrow an overall diameter of 30m.
The levelled bowl barrow, just to the north, is now difficult to identify on
the ground but its surrounding quarry ditch is visible on aerial photographs
from which the overall diameter of the barrow is calculated to be 35m. Partial
excavation of King Barrow in the 18th century revealed that a copper alloy
weapon, possibly a poleaxe weighing 20lbs, a bronze halberd and a 12"
whetstone were found.

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. 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, normally 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 variety of burial practices. There are over
10,000 surviving bowl barrows recorded nationally and at least 320 in the
Stonehenge area. This group of monuments will provide important information
on the development of this area during the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age
periods.

King Barrow survives well and is known from partial excavation to contain
archaeological remains and environmental evidence relating to the monument and
the landscape in which it was constructed. Despite the reduced height of the
levelled bowl barrow, aerial photographs have shown that the ditch fills
survive undisturbed, while deposits located on the Bronze Age ground surface
will survive beneath the area disturbed by cultivation.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Grinsell, LV, The Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume V, (1957), 150
Grinsell, LV, The Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume V, (1957), 150
Hoare, R C, Ancient History of Wiltshire, (1812)
Other

Source: Historic England