Details

The monument includes two Late Neolithic to Bronze Age bowl barrows on Stoke
Down. The barrows, which are aligned north-south, lie on the crest of an east
facing slope above a small valley. The southern barrow has a mound 11m in
diameter and a maximum of 1.25m high on its western, downhill side, surrounded
by a 2m wide ditch from which material for its construction was quarried.
Traces of this ditch are visible on the eastern side of the mound.
The adjacent, northern, barrow has a mound 10m in diameter and a maximum of
1.1m high, on the top of which is a slight depression suggesting an unrecorded
but limited excavation. The mound is surrounded by a quarry ditch which is no
longer visible on the surface but which will survive as a buried feature about
2m wide.
All fence posts 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.
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 disturbance to one of the barrow mounds, the two bowl barrows on Stoke
Down 650m south west of Foxhole Cottage are well preserved examples of their
class and will contain archaeological deposits containing information about
later prehistoric burial practices, society and environment.

Source: Historic England