Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow situated in Luccombe Bottom, a small dry
valley cut into Lower Chalk on the northern edge of Salisbury Plain south of
the village of Edington.
The barrow lies on the gentle south west facing slope of the valley floor
immediately above a sharp drop to the valley of the Stradbrook to the west.
The mound of the barrow is 9.2m in diameter and 0.75m high. There are two
depressions in the surface of the mound which are interpreted as chalk
diggings or early attempts at excavation. Surrounding the mound is a ditch
2.5m wide and 0.25m deep from which material was quarried during its
construction. A single sarsen stone 0.8m high which lies in the ditch on the
north west side is known locally as the `Bloodstone'.
Two other bowl barrows also in Luccombe Bottom are the subject of separate
schedulings (SM 31696 and SM 31698).

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 evidence for disturbance the bowl barrow 730m south of Greater Lane
Farm is a well preserved example of its class which will contain
archaeological and environmental evidence relating to both the landscape and
burial practice in the later prehistoric period. The position of the barrow at
the bottom of a valley is unusual for this type of monument.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Grinsell, L V, The Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire, (1957), 174

Source: Historic England