Details

The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow which have
been identified through air photography and which are located 136m above sea
level on the northern slopes of the valley of the River Rase. It is situated
about 800m south east of Goody Orchin Plantation, c.150m to the north of High
Street. The buried ditch, which is clearly visible from the air as a cropmark,
is approximately 64m in length by 28m wide. It is aligned south east-north
west, and follows the contour of the slope on which it is situated. The north
western end is rounded while that to the south east is straight. The remains
of features associated with the mortuary ceremonies will survive within the
central enclosure as buried features. This type of burial site is not thought
ever to have been elaborated by the construction of a large earthen mound.
The long barrow is one of a group of similar monuments associated with the
valley of the River Rase and with the prehistoric trackway now formalised as
High Street.

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

Long barrows were constructed as earthen or drystone mounds, generally with
flanking ditches. They acted as funerary monuments during the Early and Middle
Neolithic periods (3400-2400 BC), representing the burial places of Britain's
early farming communities, and as such are amongst the oldest field monuments
surviving in the present landscape. Where investigated, long barrows appear to
have been used for communal burial, often with only parts of the human remains
having been selected for interment. Certain sites provide evidence for several
phases of funerary activities preceding the construction of the barrow mound,
including ditched enclosures containing structures related to various rituals
of burial. It is probable, therefore, that long barrows acted as important
spiritual sites for their local communities over considerable periods of time.
The long barrows of the Lincolnshire Wolds and their adjacent regions have
been identified as a distinct regional grouping of monuments in which the
flanking ditches are continued around the ends of the barrow mound, either
continuously or broken by a single causeway towards one end. More than 60
examples of this type of monument are known; a small number of these survive
as earthworks, but the great majority of sites are known as cropmarks and
soilmarks recorded on aerial photographs where no mound is evident at the
surface.
Not all Lincolnshire long barrows include mounds. Current limited
understanding of the processes of Neolithic mortuary ritual in Lincolnshire is
that the large barrow mound represents the final phase of construction which
was not reached by all mortuary monuments. Many of the sites where only the
ditched enclosure is known have been interpreted as representing monuments
which had fully evolved mounds, but in which the mound itself has been
degraded or removed by subsequent agricultural activity. In a minority of
cases, however, the ditched enclosure will represent a monument which never
developed a burial mound.
As a distinctive regional grouping of one of the few types of Neolithic
monuments known, these sites are of great value. They were all in use over a
great period of time and are thus highly representive of changing cultures of
the peoples who built and maintained them. All forms of long barrow on the
Lincolnshire Wolds and its adjacent regions are therefore considered to be of
national importance and all examples with significant surviving remains are
considered worthy of protection.

Although the Neolithic long barrow 830m south west of Nimbleton Plantation
cannot be seen on the ground it is clearly visible from the air as a cropmark
indicating the presence of archaeological deposits buried beneath the present
ground surface. These deposits will retain rare information concerning the
barrow's dating and construction and the sequence of mortuary ritual at this
site. Environmental evidence will also be preserved, illustrating the nature
of the landscape in which the monument was constructed and used.
The barrow is one of a number of similar monuments associated with the valley
of the River Rase and with the prehistoric trackway now formalised as High
Street. These associations pose wider questions concerning both prehistoric
settlement patterns on the Lincolnshire Wolds and the ritual significance of
the chosen locations.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Phillips, C W, 'Archaeologia' in Excavation of Giants' Hills Long Barrow, Skendleby, Lincs., , Vol. 85, (1936), 37-106
Other
discussion, Jones, D, (1995)
oblique monochrome photograph, Everson, P, 2975/19, (1979)
oblique monochrome photograph, St Joseph, J K, BZU 11, (1979)

Source: Historic England