Details

The monument includes a long barrow sited across a gentle slope between the
summit of Salt Hill and ground falling steeply to the NW. It commands wide
views except in a southerly direction but would itself only have been
conspicuous from certain distant points. The barrow mound survives as a low
earthwork orientated NE-SW and rectangular in plan. It is 44m long, 20m wide
and survives to a height of 0.8m above the flanking quarry ditches. These are
9m wide and show as shallow hollows to the NW and SE of the mound. The site
is now under grassland, but when last ploughed many large flint nodules were
visible in the make-up of the mound.

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. This example is important as it survives well and, with no evidence
for formal excavation, has considerable archaeological potential.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Draper, C, Mesolithic And Neolithic Distribution In SE Hampshire, (1955)
Smith, I F , Long Barrows in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, (1979)
Schofield, A J, 'Archaeology and historic buildings in Hampshire' in Avon And Meon Valleys - Fieldwalking, (1987)

Source: Historic England