Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow situated on Pistle Down on the edge of a
plateau overlooking the Sleep Brook.
The barrow, which was recorded by the Royal Commission on the Historic
Monuments of England in 1975, has a mound composed of sand, earth and turf,
with maximum dimensions of 8m in diameter and about 0.75m in height.
Surrounding the mound is a ditch from which material was quarried during the
construction of the monument. The ditch has become infilled over the years,
but will survive as a buried feature 1m 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 some damage by tree planting operations, the bowl barrow on Pistle
Down 800m north east of Burrows 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
An Inventory of the Historical monuments of Dorset: Volume V, (1975), 18

Source: Historic England