Summary

Small Bronze Age bowl barrow 200m south (from 151504) of Ivinghoe beacon.Part of Ivinghoe Beacon Barrow Cemetery. The barrow survives as a well defined mound 6 metres in diameter and 0.3 metres high. It appears to be undisturbed and intact. There is no ditch visible at ground level from which the mound was constructed.

Identification Images (1)

Most Recent Monitoring

None Recorded

Monument Types

Description

The barrow survives as a well defined mound 6 metres in diameter and 0.3 metres high. It appears to be undisturbed and intact. There is no ditch visible at ground level from which the mound was constructed. It is possible that this has been infilled by natural erosion and that it survives as a buried feature c.1m wide. It has also been suggested byWainwright [2] that the barrow was constructed from scraped up turf and topsoil rather than chalk from a ditch.

Possibly barrow no.4 in Dyer's 1959 study of Chilterns barrows [1] although Dyer may also be referring to site no 151506.

The barrow is part of a group that surrounds the area of Ivinghoe Beacon.

(G Marshall)

Brief Description of Round Barrow Cemeteries.

Round barrows (of which a bowl barrow is one type) date to the Bronze Age (2000-700 BC).They usually comprise of fairly closely spaced groups of up to 30 barrows. The construction is that of rubble or earth being piled up to cover single or multiple burials. In the case of the bowl barrow type, the mound material was principally obtained by digging a circular ditch and heaping the spoil in the centre to cover the burial. The surrounding ditches often silt up over time, but are usually visible as faint depression or as a crop mark.Most cemeteries developed over a considerable period of time, often many centuries They were also often re-used for secondary burials as in the case of Anglo-Saxon burials. They exhibit considerable diversity of burial rite, plan and form, frequently including several different types of round barrow. Occasionally earlier forms of long barrow are associated with round barrow cemeteries. Wherever large scale excavation has been undertaken beyond barrows, contemporary and/or later "flat" burials have been found. This should be taken into consideration when assessing how best to manage the overall barrow cemetery landscape.
Round barrow cemeteries occur across most of lowland Britain, with a marked concentration in Wessex and in some cases they cluster around other monuments such as henges.

(M Solik)

References

Designations

Other Statuses and References

Associated Events

Associated Finds

None Recorded

Related Records