This site is entirely user-supported. See how you can help.
We don't have any photos of this monument yet. Why don't you be the first to send us one?
If Google Street View is available, the image is from the best available vantage point looking, if possible, towards the location of the monument. Where it is not available, the satellite view is shown instead.
Latitude: 50.8797 / 50°52'46"N
Longitude: -1.6908 / 1°41'26"W
OS Eastings: 421850.115939
OS Northings: 108955.680267
OS Grid: SU218089
Mapcode National: GBR 53P.RBY
Mapcode Global: FRA 76BS.544
Entry Name: Two bowl barrows forming part of Bratley Plain round barrow cemetery
Scheduled Date: 9 September 1992
Source: Historic England
Source ID: 1012556
English Heritage Legacy ID: 20316
County: Hampshire
Civil Parish: Ellingham, Harbridge and Ibsley
Traditional County: Hampshire
Lieutenancy Area (Ceremonial County): Hampshire
This monument includes two bowl barrows forming part of the Bratley Plain
round barrow cemetery which is situated on lowland heath overlooking Backley
Bottom. Both barrow mounds measure 5m in diameter and stand up to 0.2m high.
Although no longer visible at ground level, the ditches, from which material
was quarried during the construction of the barrows, surround the mounds.
These have become infilled over the years but survive as buried features c.1m
wide.
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
Round barrow cemeteries date to the Bronze Age (c.2000-700 BC). They comprise
closely-spaced groups of up to 30 round barrows - rubble or earthen mounds
covering single or multiple burials. Most cemeteries developed over a
considerable period of time, often many centuries, and in some cases acted as
a focus for burials as late as the early medieval period. They exhibit
considerable diversity of burial rite, plan and form, frequently including
several different types of round barrow, occasionally associated with earlier
long barrows. Where large scale investigation has been undertaken around them,
contemporary or later "flat" burials between the barrow mounds have often been
revealed. Round barrow cemeteries occur across most of lowland Britain, with a
marked concentration in Wessex. In some cases, they are clustered around other
important contemporary monuments such as henges. Often occupying prominent
locations, they are a major historic element in the modern landscape, whilst
their diversity and their longevity as a monument type provide important
information on the variety of beliefs and social organisation amongst early
prehistoric communities. They are particularly representative of their period
and a substantial proportion of surviving or partly-surviving examples are
considered worthy of protection.
The Bratley Plain round barrow cemetery contains a significantly large number
of small undisturbed barrows. The survival of so many small barrows within a
cemetery is a particularly uncommon phenomenon in southern England. Although
some of the larger mounds have been partially disturbed, all the barrows
retain undisturbed remains and the cemetery as a whole has considerable
archaeological potential. The New Forest region is known to have been
important in terms of lowland Bronze Age occupation and a considerable amount
of archaeological evidence has survived because of a lack of agricultural
activity, the result of later climatic deterioration, development of heath and
the establishment of a Royal Forest.
Source: Historic England
Other nearby scheduled monuments