Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow situated 1.6km north east of Hammersmith
at the top of a south facing slope commanding views over Long Bottom, a dry
valley in the chalk landscape to the south of the Wylye Valley.
The barrow includes a mound 0.5m high constructed from chalk rubble. It is
ovoid in shape measuring 7m from east to west and 10m from north to south and
is surrounded by a ditch from which material was quarried during its
construction. This has become infilled over the years and survives as a buried
feature 3m wide.
The barrow is one of a pair of round barrows at this location surrounded on
all sides by a late prehistoric field system. There is now no trace of the
second barrow, even on aerial photographs, it and the field system having been
levelled by cultivation. These features are not included in the scheduling.

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 having been spread by ploughing, the bowl barrow to the north of Long
Bottom, 1.6km north east of Hammersmith, 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
Grinsell, L V, The Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire, (1957), 161

Source: Historic England