Details

The monument includes a long barrow 580m SW of Woodcott Church and situated
just off the crest of a west-facing slope. The mound survives as an earthwork
orientated NE-SW and of rectangular plan. The barrow mound is 70m long and
20m wide and survives to a height of 1.5m. Flanking ditches, from which mound
material was quarried, are situated to either side of the mound. These
survive to a width of 12.5m, the southern ditch preserved as an earthwork
where it is bounded by a steep lynchet running parallel with the mound, and
the northern ditch as a buried feature, having been infilled over the years.

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. The Woodcott Church barrow is particularly important as it survives
well and, with no evidence of formal excavation, has considerable
archaeological potential.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Smith, I F , Long Barrows in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, (1979)

Source: Historic England