Details

This monument includes a Neolithic long barrow situated on a high ridge top
location with clear views to Dartmoor, Exmoor and Bodmin Moor. The monument
survives as a sub- rectangular mound which measures 53.6m long, 21.3m wide and
is 0.9m high. The barrow is aligned approximately east to west. The
surrounding quarry ditch, from which material to construct the mound was
derived, survives as a 3.4m wide buried feature and is clearly visible on
several aerial photographs. Over the years numerous flint artefacts, including
scrapers, have been recovered from the field surface close to the monument.

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 ploughing, the long barrow 530m WSW of Sanders's Cross survives well
and contains archaeological and environmental information relating to the
monument and the landscape in which it was constructed. This is one of only a
few long barrows recorded in Devon.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Other
Devon County Sites and Monuments Register, SS31SE36, (1988)

Source: Historic England