Details

The monument includes a saucer barrow and a small bowl barrow located on the
western side of Salthouse Heath, within a dispersed round barrow cemetery
which extends over an area of c.1.3 sq km. The saucer barrow is visible as
a low earthen mound encircled by a ditch and the remains of an external bank.
The central mound stands to a height of c.0.4m and covers a circular area
c.11m in diameter. The surrounding ditch, from which earth was dug and used
in the construction of the barrow, has become partly infilled and is visible
as a hollow c.0.3m deep and c.3m wide in the ground surface. The bank which
runs around the outer edge of the ditch is most clearly defined on the south
and west sides of the barrow, where it is c.3m wide at the base and stands to
a height of up to 0.4m. The overall diameter of the barrow is therefore
c.23m. The much smaller bowl barrow lies c.28m south east of this and is
visible as an earthen mound c.0.4m in height, covering a circular area c.4m in
diameter. Four similar small mounds, located in the vicinity of this, were
excavated in 1936 and 1938 and each was found to cover an urn of Middle Bronze
Age type (c.1200-1000 BC) containing cremated human bone. It is
considered probable that the ground between the barrows will contain other
buried archaeological remains.

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

Saucer barrows are funerary monuments of the Early Bronze Age, most examples
dating to between 1800 and l200 BC. They occur either in isolation or in
barrow cemeteries (closely-spaced groups of round barrows). They were
constructed as a circular area of level ground defined by a bank and internal
ditch and largely occupied by a single low, squat mound covering one or more
burials, usually in a pit. The burials, either inhumations or cremations, are
sometimes accompanied by pottery vessels, tools and personal ornaments. Saucer
barrows are one of the rarest recognised forms of round barrow, with about 60
known examples nationally, most of which are in Wessex. The presence of grave
goods within the barrows provides important evidence for chronological and
cultural links amongst prehistoric communities over a wide area of southern
England as well as providing an insight into their beliefs and social
organisation. As a rare and fragile form of round barrow, all identified
saucer barrows would normally be considered to be of national importance.

The saucer barrow 630m north east of Swan Lodge is an example of a type which
is extremely rare in Norfolk and it survives well. Archaeological information
concerning the construction and use of the barrow will be contained in the
mound, bank and fill of the ditch, and evidence for the local environment
during and prior to that period is likely to be preserved in soils buried
beneath the mound and bank. The adjacent small bowl barrow also survives well
and the contrast between the two illustrates something of the diversity of
forms and burial rites which are represented in the round barrow cemetery as a
whole. This diversity, and the evidence from limited investigations of
several barrows in, on and around Salthouse Heath, indicates that the cemetery
was in use over several centuries, and the evidence contained in the barrows
as a group therefore has a wider importance for the study of the character and
development of the prehistoric population of the area.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Clarke, R R, 'Archaeol J' in The Iron Age in Norfolk and Suffolk, , Vol. 96, (1939), 20
Wake, T, 'East Anglian Mag' in Coordinating Regional Research, , Vol. 4, (1939), 127
Other
Clarke, R R & Grinsell, L V, 6208: North Norfolk, Salthouse,
copy in SMR File 6212, Piggott, S, Letter to A Q Watson, (1937)
NAR TG 04 SE 24,

Source: Historic England