Ancient Monuments

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Long barrow 700m south-west of Longwood House

A Scheduled Monument in Owslebury, Hampshire

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Coordinates

Latitude: 51.0172 / 51°1'1"N

Longitude: -1.2395 / 1°14'22"W

OS Eastings: 453442.431943

OS Northings: 124479.532941

OS Grid: SU534244

Mapcode National: GBR 981.5G0

Mapcode Global: FRA 869F.6YF

Entry Name: Long barrow 700m south-west of Longwood House

Scheduled Date: 8 November 1961

Last Amended: 17 October 1990

Source: Historic England

Source ID: 1013018

English Heritage Legacy ID: 12099

County: Hampshire

Civil Parish: Owslebury

Traditional County: Hampshire

Lieutenancy Area (Ceremonial County): Hampshire

Church of England Parish: Owslebury St Andrew

Church of England Diocese: Winchester

Details

The monument includes a long barrow inconspicuously sited along a
gentle NW-facing slope and currently situated in a plantation. The
barrow mound has been partly disturbed by a chalk-pit and a transverse
disturbance of uncertain origin. The monument is orientated SE-NW and
tapers slightly in plan with the broader end to the SE where the mound
rises to a height of 2m.
The mound is 74m long, 21.5m wide at the east end and 18m wide at the
west end. Flanking quarry ditches run parallel to the mound on the NE
and SW sides and have an average width of 7.5m. These are not visible
as surface features but do survive below-ground.

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
neolithic period (3000-2400bc). 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 partial human remains 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, unless
very severely damaged, 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 regarded as important as it
survives well and, with no 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), 46

Source: Historic England

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