Details

The monument includes one of a group of two bowl barrows, known locally as
`The Butt Hills', reflecting their probable reuse in the medieval period
as butts for archery practice.
The barrow is located in the playing field of the East Yorkshire College of
Further Education, close to a paved footpath, and lies around 100m to the east
of the other Butt Hills barrow.
The monument is visible as a low grassed mound about 1m in height, and
measuring c.13m in diameter, surrounded by a ditch c.2m wide, which is visible
as a slight depression encircling the mound. The barrows are named from the
tradition that they were at one time reused as archery butts for local people
to practise on Sundays, after mass, although the veracity of this has not been
confirmed.
The surface of the modern tarmac pathway which crosses the northward side of
the monument is excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath it
is included.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

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 monument is one of a pair of round barrows surviving within the town of
Bridlington. Although somewhat reduced in size through the passage of time, it
still retains a visible mound and encircling ditch, both of which will contain
archaeological and environmental information relating to the monument's period
and method of construction. The reuse of the barrow as an archery butt is
unusual. Such butts were used throughout the medieval period for archery
practice with the longbow, an important element of England's weaponry
throughout the medieval period.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Mortimer, J R , Forty Years Researches in British and Saxon Burial Mounds of East Yorkshire, (1905), 396
Mortimer, J R , Forty Years Researches in British and Saxon Burial Mounds of East Yorkshire, (1905), 396
Other
Humberside SMR, Sites and Monuments Records Sheet, (1994)
Humberside SMR, Sites and Monuments Records Sheet, (1994)

Source: Historic England