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Wood Farm

Round Barrow(s)

Fieldnotes

Visited 31.1.2009 on a cold day, approaching up the hill from the west. The barrow is in a rather sorry state - I don't know how it looked prior to the 1930 excavation (when a number of intact burials were found) but the excavation itself clearly was more "destructive" than simply invasive. The remaining barrow looks like the crater of a grassy volcano!

Even in its reduced state, the barrow is a good size, at least 12 paces in diameter and almost a metre high around the rim. As with many Cotswold barrows (both long and round) it is not situated on the top of the hill, but some way down the slope. In this case, it sits a hundred metres or so down the western side of the slope, about 10 metres lower than the ridge where the Cotswold Way footpath runs. However, this gives it a very commanding view to the west (not today sadly!) over the vale of the Severn and to the Malverns.

The barrow is visible from the Cotswold Way, and without the field boundaries would have been fairly prominent. Sadly there is no real ambience or sense of place, as the barrow is very run down and sits in a ploughed field (the lack of visibility probably didn't help today either).

If anyone is intending to visit, there are three ways of approach: (1) up the steep slope from the west (Battledown), taking a footpath heading due east off the lane that runs past Hewletts Reservoir and goes past Northfield Farm (2) from the north along the Cotswold Way, from the direction of Cleeve Hill and (3) from the south along the Cotswold Way from Dowdeswell or the Ham Farm lane. (2) and (3) are pretty flat and easy walking, (1) is pretty steep. The barrow itself lies near the SW corner of a ploughed field on private land, but the footpath (1) runs along the north side of this field and I skirted the field edge to get to it - no harm done!

Not perhaps somewhere to come specifically, unless you're curious, but could be viewed as part of a walk around Cleeve Hill.
thesweetcheat Posted by thesweetcheat
31st January 2009ce
Edited 31st January 2009ce

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