Bere Down Long Barrow View all content for Bere Down

Details of Long Barrow on Pastscape A Neolithic long barrow located on Bere Down. The barrow mound measures up to 55 metres by 24 metres and between 0.5 to 0.75 metres high. It is associated with 5 sarsen stones which were discovered during ploughing, and may relate to a chamber within the mound. The barrow was later incorporated into a prehistoric field boundary. Scheduled. (SY 82989725) Long Barrow (NR) (1) Long Barrow, possibly chambered (SY 82989725), lies on Bere Down, about 200 ft above Ordnance Datum, just below the crest of a broad chalk ridge, on ground sloping gently to NW, W and S, it is only seen in silhouette at close range from N and S. On a bearing of 70o, it is 176 ft long, 65 ft wide in the middle where widest, and some 7 ft high at the E end and 6 ft at the W. A slight terrace, some 45 ft wide, parallel to the barrow on the S, probably marks the site of the ditch. The centre of the mound has been cut into from the S and the spine hollowed for 114 ft from the W end. Five sarsen boulders, none more than 2 1/2 ft long and 1 1/4 ft deep, lie scattered, two on the hollowed spine and three in the S excavation where there is a large heap of flints. The barrow was used as a 'Celtic' field boundary (see SY 89 NW 12), and lynchets run up to it, crossing the line of any ditch that may have existed on the N. The mound has been damaged by rabbits and ploughing. (2) SY 829972. Bere Regis long barrow (Wessex No 155). Listed. (3) Long barrow on Bere Down, ploughed and spread but still visible from a distance, although unsurveyable. (4) SY 82989725. A long barrow, generally as described by R.C.H.M. (2), appears as a gently-sloping ridge, but from the north where the air photograph (a) shows that the barrow once formed the northern boundary of a field of the prehistoric system (SY 89 NW 12), it merges into the hillside with but a minimum of height (0.1 metres). Its length is now 50.0 metres, its width 15.0 metres maximum, and height from the south (downhill) side 1.2 metres. Resurveyed at 1:2500 on M.S.D. (5) The barrow mound now measures a maximum of 55 metres in length, 24 metres in width and between 0.5 to 0.75 metres in height. Scheduling revised 09/03/01. (6) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SOURCE TEXT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ( 1) Ordnance Survey Map (Scale / Date) OS 6" 1968 ( 2) Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England) 1970 An inventory of historical monuments in the County of Dorset. Volume two : south-east [in three parts] Pt 3 No 66 Page(s)431 ( 3) by Paul Ashbee 1970 The earthen long barrow in Britain : an introduction to the study of the funerary practice and culture of the Neolithic people of the third millennium Page(s)162 ( 4) Oral information, correspondence (not archived) or staff comments ( 5a) Aerial photograph APs(OS/80/021/161-2 18.4.80) ( 5) Field Investigators Comments F1 JGB 15-MAY-81 ( 6) Scheduled Monument Notification EH Scheduled Monument Revision, 09-MAR-2001

Posted by Chance 9th March 2012ce

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