Details

The monument includes the earthwork and buried remains of a Neolithic long
barrow located 60m above sea level on the eastern bank of the Waithe Beck, in
Valley Plantation c.200m west of Thorganby Hall. The barrow mound is aligned
east-west and is approximately 35m long by 23m wide, standing to a maximum
height of 4m at the western end which terminates steeply. The eastern tail of
the barrow changes axis in a southerly direction.
The ditch from which material for the mound would have been quarried is not
visible but it will survive buried beneath the present ground surface.
The monument lies about 2.1km NNW of Ash Hill long barrow (SM 27854) and
c.3.25km SSE of the long barrow at Ash Holt (SM 27869), which are the subject
of separate schedulings. These monuments, together with the long barrows at
Hoe Hill, (also the subject of a separate scheduling), are thought to form a
group associated with the valley of the Waithe Beck.
The fence and fenceposts are excluded from the scheduling, although the ground
beneath them is included.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

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.

The Neolithic long barrow in Valley Plantation is a substantial and well
preserved earthwork undisturbed by agricultural and archaeological activity.
Valuable archaeological information relating to its dating and construction
and the sequence of burial ritual will be preserved beneath the mound and in
the fills of the ditch. Environmental evidence surviving in these deposits
will illustrate the nature of the landscape in which the monument was
constructed and used. Its proximity to Ash Hill and Ash Holt long barrows and
their association with the valley of the Waithe Beck poses wider questions
regarding settlement patterns and routes of communications during the
Neolithic period.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Phillips, P, 'BAR' in Archaeology and Landscape Studies in North Lincolnshire, , Vol. 208(i), (1989), 181-183
Phillips, C W, 'Archaeological Journal' in The Long Barrows of Lincolnshire, , Vol. 89, (1933), 188

Source: Historic England