Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow situated below the crest of a ridge
overlooking St Oswald's Bay to the south.
The barrow was recorded by the Ordnance Survey in 1903, L V Grinsell in 1959
and by The Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments (England) in 1970. It
included a mound composed of earth and chalk with maximum dimensions of 25m in
diameter and about 1.7m high. During the 1950s and 1960s the northern area
of the barrow was subject to ploughing and, as a result, this part of the
mound has been reduced. The barrow mound is now visible as an earthwork 25m
from east to west, 14m from north to south and about 1.25m in height.
Surrounding the mound is a ditch from which material was quarried during the
construction of the monument. This has become infilled over the years,
but will survive as a buried feature 2.5m wide.

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 partial reduction of the mound by ploughing, the bowl barrow 900m
south east of Chideock Farm survives comparatively well and will contain
archaeological and environmental evidence relating to the monument and the
landscape in which it was constructed.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset: Volume I, (1970), 446
Grinsell, L V, 'Procs Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Soc.' in Dorset Barrows, (1959), 140
Other
Mention OS 1903 map,

Source: Historic England