Details

The monument includes a long barrow set in an area of undulating chalk
downland some 500m north-west of Danebury hillfort. The mound is orientated
east-west and is rectangular in plan, measuring 50m long by 20m wide rising to
a height of 1m above ground level at the east end. Flanking ditches, from
which mound material was quarried, are contiguous to the sides of the mound
and survive to a width of 10m and a depth of 0.2m.
This appears as one of three long barrows in the immediate area.

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 Down Farm site is of particular importance as it survives well
and is one of a group of three surviving in the immediate area. Such clusters
are important as they give an indication of the intensity with which areas
were settled during the Neolithic period, a period for which little settlement
evidence survives.

Source: Historic England

Sources

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

Source: Historic England