Details

The monument includes the buried remains of a Bronze Age bowl barrow situated
on the southern end of a low ridge within the broad valley between Bledlow
Ridge and Callow Hill, to the west of the railway line from High Wycombe and
Princes Risborough.

The barrow mound appeared as a substantial earthwork in the early 19th century
and was partially excavated in 1858. The mound has since been ploughed down
although a slight rise of approximately 0.5m remains which, together with the
buried quarry ditch encircling the mound, still appears as a dark soilmark and
cropmark recorded in a sequence of aerial photographs taken between 1937 and
1981. The barrow is approximately 42m in diameter measured from the outer edge
of the surrounding, c.3m wide ditch. The area of dark coloured soil recorded
in the centre of the mound area measures some 24m across, and is thought to
represent the remains of a turf stack at the core of the mound.

The barrow forms part of a small round barrow cemetery which includes four
similar monuments (the subject of separate schedulings): a bell barrow and two
bowl barrows situated on the slightly higher ground to the north west, and a
further bowl barrow located down the slope to the south, on the south side of
Haw Lane. This cemetery, in turn, forms the central section of a wider
alignment of barrows extending across the valley from Saunderton Station
(c.1km to the south east) to Wain Hill (3.5km to the north west). The
alignment is thought to reflect the route of a prehistoric trackway which,
from the topographical position of the Saunderton Lee cemetery, appears to
have followed a shallow coombe immediately to the south west before continuing
northwards around the western side of Lodge Hill. Prehistoric activity is also
demonstrated by the number of worked flint artefacts which have been recovered
from the fields to the west of the bowl barrow and to the south of Haw Lane.

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.

Despite being reduced by cultivation, the bowl barrow 140m WNW of Slough Glebe
Farm will retain significant archaeological information. Funerary remains will
survive in buried features within the area of the mounds which will illustrate
the function of the monument and the beliefs of the community which built it.
Further remains, funerary and otherwise, may also be found in the silts of the
surrounding ditch, as well as environmental evidence which will demonstrate
the appearance of the landscape in which it was set.

The association between this barrow and the other barrows which together
comprise the cemetery centred on Saunderton Lee provides important information
concerning the variation in prehistoric burial practices. Furthermore, the
cemetery's association with the wider barrow alignment, and the contemporary
trackway which the alignment implies, is highly significant for the study of
prehistoric settlement within the Chiltern Hills.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Head, J F, Early Man in South Buckinghamshire, (1955), 49-53
Burgess, W, 'Records of Bucks' in Antiquities of the Chiltern Hills, , Vol. 1, (1848), 22
Other
AP held by Bucks Museums Service, Farley, M E, A5/15/5A 6A, (1981)
AP held by Bucks Museums Service, Major Allen, SU 80/98, (1937)
AP sequence 1937 to 1974, St Joseph, J K S (CUCAP), ACT 34, AFW 4-5, ARA 43-4, AST 41-2, BMH 84-5, BRW 1-5, CN 34,
B.C.M. Accessions Register, (1972)
Ordnance Survey Record card, NKB, SU 89 NW 07, (1972)
RCHM, The Monuments of Buckinghamshire,
Title: 1:10,000 feature location Maps
Source Date:
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Source: Historic England