Details

This monument includes a bowl barrow situated on lowland heath overlooking
Akercome Bottom. The barrow mound measures 12m in diameter and stands up to
0.9m high. A hollow in the centre of the mound is the result of a 19th-
century excavation which revealed the mound to have been constructed of white
sand and produced charcoal but no burials. A ditch, from which material was
quarried during the construction of the barrow, surrounds the mound. This has
has become partially infilled over the years but survives as a slight
earthwork 3m wide and 0.1m deep on the south-western and eastern sides of the
mound and as a buried feature elsewhere.

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

Bowl barrows, the most numerous form of round barrow, are funerary monuments
dating from the Late Neolithic period to the Late Bronze Age, with most
examples belonging to the period 2400-1500 BC. They were constructed as
earthen or rubble mounds, sometimes ditched, which covered single or multiple
burials. They occur either in isolation or grouped as cemeteries and often
acted as a focus for burials in later periods. Often superficially similar,
although differing widely in size, they exhibit regional variations in form
and a diversity of burial practices. There are over 10,000 surviving bowl
barrows recorded nationally (many more have already been destroyed), occurring
across most of lowland Britain. Often occupying prominent locations, they are
a major historic element in the modern landscape and their considerable
variation of form and longevity as a monument type provide important
information on the diversity of beliefs and social organisations amongst early
prehistoric communities. They are particularly representative of their period
and a substantial proportion of surviving examples are considered worthy of
protection.

Despite evidence for partial excavation, the bowl barrow on Handy Cross Plain
survives comparatively well within the New Forest, an area known to have been
important in terms of lowland Bronze Age occupation. A considerable amount of
archaeological evidence has survived in this area 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

Sources

Books and journals
Wise, J R, The New Forest, (1893), 209
Other
Hampshire County Planning Department, SU20NW8,

Source: Historic England