Details

The monument includes a Bronze Age bowl barrow situated on the tip of a low
spur in the chalk hills providing wide views over lower ground to the north
east towards the village of Ickeleton and the valley of the River Cam or
Granta. The barrow is now contained within a small copse, in the absence of
which it would have served as a conspicuous local landmark.
The barrow is circular in plan measuring 24m in diameter, and surviving to a
height of 0.9m-1.2m. The top of the mound appears flattened although the
angles of the surrounding slopes indicate that much of the original profile is
retained. A slight depression in the centre of the mound may mark the location
of a small scale excavation carried out by students from Cambridge before
1914. The surrounding ditch, from which material for the mound was originally
quarried, is now completely infilled. However, an aerial photograph taken in
1988 shows part of the ditch as a ploughmark extending slightly beyond the
south western edge of the copse.

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 some disturbance caused by limited excavation, the bowl barrow WSW of
Valance Farm is well preserved. The barrow survives as an upstanding
earthwork, in marked contrast to the majority of barrows in the region which
are now only visible as cropmarks from the air. Funerary remains will be
preserved in buried features beneath the mound which will illustrate the
function of the monument and the beliefs of the prehistoric community which
built it. Further remains, funerary and otherwise, may also be found in the
fills of the surrounding ditch and environmental evidence both here and on the
former ground surface beneath the mound, will provide valuable information
concerning the appearance of the landscape in which the monument was set.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Other
CUCAP, BL 74, (1988)
Site notes, Taylor, A, 4216 Round barrow WSW of Valance Farm, (1980)

Source: Historic England