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Kitchen Barrow: a long barrow on Kitchen Barrow Hill

A Scheduled Monument in Bishops Cannings, Wiltshire

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Coordinates

Latitude: 51.3822 / 51°22'55"N

Longitude: -1.9053 / 1°54'19"W

OS Eastings: 406682.977377

OS Northings: 164798.443047

OS Grid: SU066647

Mapcode National: GBR 3W2.C2P

Mapcode Global: VHB49.XJL8

Entry Name: Kitchen Barrow: a long barrow on Kitchen Barrow Hill

Scheduled Date: 1 August 1924

Last Amended: 26 June 1991

Source: Historic England

Source ID: 1012519

English Heritage Legacy ID: 12168

County: Wiltshire

Civil Parish: Bishops Cannings

Traditional County: Wiltshire

Lieutenancy Area (Ceremonial County): Wiltshire

Church of England Parish: Bishop's Cannings and Etchilhampton St Mary the Virgin

Church of England Diocese: Salisbury

Details

The monument includes a long barrow, orientated SW-NE and set below the
crest of a steep south-facing slope. The barrow mound has maximum dimensions
of 33m long by 15m wide and survives to a height of 2m when viewed from the
south-west. Flanking quarry ditches run parallel and contiguous to the
barrow mound. These are 5m wide and up to 0.5m deep on the east side and 1m
deep to the west.
Central hollows on the surface of the mound suggest the site may once have
been excavated.
Worked flint artefacts, probably contemporary with the construction and use
of the monument, are visible on the surface of the adjacent ploughed field.

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 long
barrows are recorded in England. 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.

The 180 long barrows of Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset form the densest and
one of the most significant concentrations of monuments of this type in the
country. Kitchen barrow is important, despite evidence for partial
excavation, as it survives well and has considerable archaeological
potential. The significance of the monument is considerably enhanced by the
presence of other long barrows and contemporary sites in the immediate
vicinity which indicate the intensity of settlement in the Neolithic period.

Source: Historic England

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