Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow set just below the crest of a gentle
north-east facing slope. The barrow mound survives to a height of 0.5m and is
15m in diameter. Surrounding the mound is a ditch c.3m wide, visible as an
earthwork as late as 1972 but now surviving as a buried feature.

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.

Despite limited damage from cultivation, with no evidence for formal
excavation of the Wick Down barrow, the site has considerable archaeological
potential.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Other
Wilts SMR Record,

Source: Historic England