Details

The monument includes a long barrow 240m south west of Green Barrow Farm on
level farmland to the east of the village of Castle Combe. The monument
has a long rounded mound up to 1.5m high interpreted as a long barrow which
has been spread by ploughing. It is 57m long on a NNE-SSW axis and 43m wide on
a SSE-NNW axis. Crossing the mound towards the south west there is a slight
linear depression interpreted as a former field boundary.
The barrow from which Green Barrow Farm takes its name is recorded in Scrope's
History of Castle Combe as a long oblong mound, levelled by its owner in 1852.

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

Long barrows were constructed as earthen or drystone mounds with flanking
ditches and acted as funerary monuments during the Early and Middle Neolithic
periods (3400-2400 BC). They represent the burial places of Britain's early
farming communities and, as such, are amongst the oldest field monuments
surviving visibly in the present landscape. Where investigated, long barrows
appear to have been used for communal burial, often with only parts of the
human remains having been selected for interment. Certain sites provide
evidence for several phases of funerary monument preceding the barrow and,
consequently, it is probable that long barrows acted as important ritual sites
for local communities over a considerable period of time. Some 500 examples of
long barrows and long cairns, their counterparts in the uplands, are recorded
nationally. As one of the few types of Neolithic structure to survive as
earthworks, and due to their comparative rarity, their considerable age and
their longevity as a monument type, all long barrows are considered to be
nationally important.

Despite being spread by ploughing, the long barrow at Green Barrow Farm
will contain archaeological remains and environmental evidence
relating to the monument and the landscape in which it was constructed.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Scrope, G P, A History of Castle Combe, (1852), 9

Source: Historic England