Details

The monument includes a small barrow within a dispersed round barrow cemetery
extending over an area of c.1.3 sq km on and around Salthouse Heath. The
barrow is situated on the heath c.20m south of the minor road between Kelling
and Cley, and is visible as a regularly formed mound of earth and gravel
c.0.4m in height and covering a circular area c.3m in diameter. Approximately
30 similar small mounds were recorded on the heath between 1936 and 1939, in
an area 200m to the east and south east of this, and four of them excavated at
that time were found to cover urns of Middle Bronze Age type (c.1200-1000 BC).
At least eight others are known to survive and are the subject of separate
schedulings.

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.

The bowl barrow 750m north east of Swan Lodge is one of several on Salthouse
Heath which are of unusually small size and yet survive well. As a variant of
the bowl barrow type they are rare and, according to the evidence from the
excavation of other examples in the 1930s, they are likely, individually and
as a group, to contain archaeological information concerning the later use of
the large round barrow cemetery in which they are situated. In that context
they have therefore a wider significance for the study of the character and
development of the prehistoric population of the area.

Source: Historic England