Flowerdown Barrows

Dropped by last weekend in the sunshine with a couple of friends. I hadn’t been here for 15+ years and had forgotten just how big the disc barrow is. A nice peaceful spot though it is surrounded by housing. You can see the disc barrow clearly on take-off from Southampton airport, but that also means when you’re on the ground the peace is disturbed by a procession of noisy Fokkers overhead.

There are two bowl barrows between the road and the disc, one quite obvious and the other only a little mound about 0.3m high. The smaller one is the only that hasn’t been excavated in the past. Don’t be confused by the information board which gets bowl and disc mixed up!

Sarsen stones are comparatively rare in this district and I think this is the biggest, though who knows what is waiting for future generations waterlogged underneath St Mary’s Church in Twyford...