Blagdon Hill Round Barrow(s) View all content for Blagdon Hill

Details of barrow on Pastscape - Monument No. 213422 A bowl barrow, one of a pair located side by side, just south of Bokerley Dyke and immediately adjacent to Grim's Ditch. Listed by RCHME as Pentridge 33 and by Grinsell as Pentridge 12, it was described by RCHME as a well-preserved mound 58 feet in diameter and 6 feet high, surrounded by a ditch 12 feet wide and 1.5 feet deep. Both of the barrows had been dug into in the past. It seems quite likley that they are to be identified with two barrows excavated by Hoare and Cunnington in the early 19th century. This identification is by no means certain, but this pair seem the most plausible candidates among the known barrows. If the identification is correct, this barrow, the larger of the pair, proved to contain "two skeletons, and several instruments of iron, viz. a lance-head, two knives, and an article of bone". These would appear to represent interments of Saxon date, probably dating from the late 5th to early 8th century. They may be the primary interments, but it is more likely that they represent secondary, intrusive interments in an earlier, Bronze Age, barrow. Grinsell lists the barrow excavated by Hoare and Cunnington as Pentridge 13b, declaring it unlocated. See Bowen (1990) for a discussion of the relationship between the linear earthworks and the barrows in this area.

Posted by Chance 5th June 2014ce

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