Details

The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow located
130m above sea level on the north west facing side of a valley, above the
source of the Waithe Beck, c.100m east of Trusoles Plantation and 400m SSW of
Stainton Hall. Although it cannot be seen on the ground, the monument is
clearly visible as a cropmark on aerial photographs. The trapezoidal ditch
encloses an area about 53m by 28m, within which there may once have been an
earthen mound. Structures and deposits relating to mortuary activity within
the ditch will survive as buried features. The monument is aligned south east-
north west. A causeway interrupts the ditch circuit to the north. Thickening
of the side ditches is thought to indicate recutting, suggesting that the
barrow continued to be a focus of attention for some time after its
construction. The barrow is one of a number of similar monuments associated
with the head of the Waithe Beck and with High Street which originated as a
prehistoric trackway.

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 SSW of Stainton Hall has been degraded by
ploughing, valuable archaeological deposits will be preserved on the buried
ground surface and in the fills of the ditch. These will provide rare
information concerning the dating and construction of the monument and the
sequence of mortuary practices at the site. The same deposits will also retain
environmental evidence illustrating the nature of the landscape in which the
monument was set.
The proximity of other similar monuments above the head of the Waithe Beck and
associated with the prehistoric trackway now formalised as High Street,
demonstrates the ritual significance of this area and has wider implications
for the study of demography and settlement patterns during the Neolithic
period.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Bonnor, L D, Griffiths, D W, Skitter to Hatton 4050mm diameter pipeline, 1993, (1993), 31-41
Phillips, C W, 'Archaeologia' in Excavation of Giants' Hills Long Barrow, Skendleby, Lincs., , Vol. 85, (1936), 37-106
Other
oblique monochrome photographs, Everson, P, 2946/6-7, (1980)

Source: Historic England