Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow situated on Emmett's Hill on the edge of a
precipitous cliff to the west.
The barrow, which was recorded by the Royal Commission on the Historical
Monuments of England in 1970, has a mound composed of earth and limestone
blocks, with maximum dimensions of 12m in diameter and about 0.75m in height.
Partial cliff collapse has resulted in the loss of about 4m of the mound to
the west.
Surrounding the mound to the north, east and south 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 1.5m
wide. The barrow lies within an extensive area of field system which is likely
to have prehistoric origins. However this has been reduced by ploughing to the
extent that only fragmented remains will survive. The field system is not
included in the scheduling.
All fence posts are excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath
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 the loss of part of the mound and ditch through cliff collapse, the
bowl barrow on Emmett's Hill 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), 474

Source: Historic England