Moody's Down Long Barrow View all content for Moody's Down

Details of long barrows on Pastscape (`A' - SU 43473862 and `B' - SU 43363867) Tumuli (OE) (1) `A' Long barrow No 49(3). A pear-shaped mound, 160' long, 84' wide at the E end and 5' high, with flank ditches 24' wide and 1' deep.(1) This long barrow has been destroyed in making a rifle range.(4) In removing it a skeleton was found, rather to the east of the middle and on the main axis. The cranium (seen at the clerk of works office) was of long-headed Neolithic type. The barrow was composed of chalk rubble except in the region of the skeleton, where there was black clayey soil. All the material was removed carefully, but nothing unusual was noticed, At the time of my visit, 4.4.1940, two long narrow trenches had been (cut) into the underlying natural chalk to a depth of c.18". In one of them the lip of the ditch was exposed and showed that the ditch was c26' wide.(5) `B' Long barrow, No 50 (3) with a rectangular mound 220' long 75' wide and 4' high (its height almost the same throughout its length) and parallel flank ditches, 27' wide and 1' deep. A rim fragment, now in the Winchester Museum, which I obtained from its SE end, has been examined by Mr C F C Hawkes, who states that it "could reasonably be taken as Neolithic `A'.... but it might easily be late Bronze Age".(2) (2-7) `A' Mound completely removed. Course of northern ditch, visible as band of rank grass. `B' Description in T2 correct. Freshly ploughed. (8) SU 43473862. Moody's Down South-East long barrow. The ditches remain visible as hollows under grass on flat ground. SU 44363867. Moody's Down North-West long barrow. Reduced by ploughing; it now measures 70.0m long, 1.2m high and 7.5m wide.

Posted by Chance 7th June 2014ce

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