Details

The monument includes a long barrow orientated north east-south west just
below the crest of a NNE-facing hillside in the Cotswolds, with extensive
views to the north, east and south.
The barrow has a mound which measures approximately 44m long. It is
approximately 0.75m high at its north east end rising to 2m high towards the
south west. It is approximately 9m wide at the north east end, 20m wide in the
middle and 8m wide at the south west end. On either side of the mound is a
berm approximately 5m wide and a ditch. Material was excavated from the
ditches during the construction of the long barrow mound. The ditches can no
longer be seen at ground level, but survive as buried features approximately
5m wide.
The barrow was discovered by the Revd Jowett Burton in 1923, and subsequently
visited and its status confirmed by Grinsell in 1959.
The drystone walls which surround part of the mound and that which leads west
from the mound are excluded from the scheduling, but the ground beneath them
is included.

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

Long barrows were constructed as earthen or drystone mounds with flanking
ditches and acted as funerary monuments during the Early and Middle Neolithic
periods (3400-2400 BC). They represent the burial places of Britain's early
farming communities and, as such, are amongst the oldest field monuments
surviving visibly 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 monument preceding the barrow and,
consequently, it is probable that long barrows acted as important ritual sites
for local communities over a considerable period of time. Some 500 examples of
long barrows and long cairns, their counterparts in the uplands, are recorded
nationally. As one of the few types of Neolithic structure to survive as
earthworks, and due to their comparative rarity, their considerable age and
their longevity as a monument type, all long barrows are considered to be
nationally important.

The long barrow known as `Bourton Clump' survives well as an unexcavated long
barrow, and will contain archaeological and environmental evidence relating to
the barrow and the landscape in which it was constructed. This monument
represents an example of a group of long barrows commonly referred to as the
Cotswold-Severn group, named after the area in which they are found.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
O`Neil, H E, Grinsell, L V, 'Proc of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Arch Soc' in Gloucestershire Barrows, , Vol. 79, (1960), 72

Source: Historic England