Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow situated on the southern part of Black
Down, overlooking Lyme Bay to the south. The barrow forms part of a dispersed
cemetery of 16 round barrows (of which 15 survive) which forms part of the
South Dorset Ridgeway barrow group. The additional barrows in the cemetery are
the subject of separate schedulings.
The barrow has a mound composed of sand, gravel and earth, with maximum
dimensions of 14m in diameter and about 1.5m in height. The mound is
surrounded by 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 about 2m 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

Round barrow cemeteries date to the Bronze Age (c.2000-700 BC). They comprise
closely-spaced groups of up to 30 round barrows - rubble or earthen mounds
covering single or multiple burials. Most cemeteries developed over a
considerable period of time, often many centuries, and in some cases acted as
a focus for burials as late as the early medieval period. They exhibit
considerable diversity of burial rite, plan and form, frequently including
several different types of round barrow, occasionally associated with earlier
long barrows. Where large scale investigation has been undertaken around them,
contemporary or later "flat" burials between the barrow mounds have often been
revealed. Round barrow cemeteries occur across most of lowland Britain, with a
marked concentration in Wessex. In some cases, they are clustered around other
important contemporary monuments such as henges. Often occupying prominent
locations, they are a major historic element in the modern landscape, whilst
their diversity and their longevity as a monument type provide important
information on the variety of beliefs and social organisation amongst early
prehistoric communities. They are particularly representative of their period
and a substantial proportion of surviving or partly-surviving examples are
considered worthy of protection.

Bowl barrows, the most numerous form of round barrow, are funerary monuments
dating from the Late Neolithic to Late Bronze Age, with most examples
belonging to the period 2400 BC to 1500 BC. Over 10,000 surviving examples are
recorded nationally.
Despite some ploughing around the periphery of the mound, the bowl barrow on
Black Down, 870m north west of The Hardy Monument, survives 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 1 , (1952), 39

Source: Historic England