Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow situated on the lower part of a north
facing slope of the South Dorset Downs, overlooking the South Winterbourne
Valley to the north east and the Winterbourne Poor Lot cemetery to the north.
The barrow forms an eastern outlier of the Winterbourne Poor Lot cemetery and
it is intervisible with many of the barrows to the north and west.
The barrow was recorded by the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments
(England) in 1952, and was found to have a mound with a diameter of 22m and a
height of c.0.9m, although this has since been reduced by ploughing.
Surrounding the mound is a ditch from which material was quarried during the
construction of the monument. This is no longer visible at ground level as it
has become infilled over the years, but it will survive as a buried feature
c.2m wide.

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

Round barrow cemeteries date to the Bronze Age (c.2000-700 BC). They comprise
closely-spaced groups of up to 30 round barrows - rubble or earthen mounds
covering single or multiple burials. Most cemeteries developed over a
considerable period of time, often many centuries, and in some cases acted as
a focus for burials as late as the early medieval period. They exhibit
considerable diversity of burial rite, plan and form, frequently including
several different types of round barrow, occasionally associated with earlier
long barrows. Where large scale investigation has been undertaken around them,
contemporary or later "flat" burials between the barrow mounds have often been
revealed. Round barrow cemeteries occur across most of lowland Britain, with a
marked concentration in Wessex. In some cases, they are clustered around other
important contemporary monuments such as henges. Often occupying prominent
locations, they are a major historic element in the modern landscape, whilst
their diversity and their longevity as a monument type provide important
information on the variety of beliefs and social organisation amongst early
prehistoric communities. They are particularly representative of their period
and a substantial proportion of surviving or partly-surviving examples are
considered worthy of protection.

Despite reduction in height by cultivation, the bowl barrow 200m south of
Winterbourne Poor Lot will survive in the form of buried remains and, as such,
will contain archaeological and environmental evidence relating to the
Winterbourne Poor Lot round barrow cemetery and the landscape in which it was
constructed.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
An Inventory of the Historical Monuments of Dorset: Volume 1 , (1952), 39

Source: Historic England