Details

The monument includes the buried remains of a Bronze Age bowl barrow located
146m above sea level in arable land about 600m WSW of New Buildings and about
200m west of Bluestone Heath Road. It has a diameter of approximately 36.5m
and while the mound is known to have stood to a height of about 1.5m, this has
been reduced in recent years by ploughing to a few centimetres. The barrow is
thought to have been encircled by a ditch now buried beneath the present
ground surface from which material for its construction would have been
quarried.
Its proximity to Bluestone Heath Road, which is thought to have originated as
a prehistoric trackway, and to a number of other Neolithic and Bronze Age
barrows, indicates that the area was of continuing ritual significance in the
prehistoric period.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
It includes a 5 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.

Ploughing has reduced the height of the bowl barrow 600m WSW of New Buildings
but it will not have affected archaeological deposits on and under the
original ground surface or within the quarry ditch. These will provide
important information concerning the monument's construction and the mortuary
practices of its builders. Environmental evidence will also be retained in
these features, illustrating the character of the landscape in which the
monument was set. The barrow's proximity to the prehistoric ridgeway now
formalised as Bluestone Heath Road, and to a number of other Bronze Age
and Neolithic burial mounds in the vicinity poses wider questions concerning
both the ritual significance of the location and the nature of settlement
patterns during the prehistoric period.

Source: Historic England