Third Milestone Group (SY 69 SW). Five barrows in an irregular W.-E. line on the crest of a ridge immediately S. of the Roman road three miles W. of Dorchester. (114) and (115) have probably been excavated twice, by Warne and Sydenham in 1839–40 and Cunnington in 1885, though it is impossible to correlate the accounts. One contained a primary extended inhumation with a chalk-filled urn and an antler in a grave 7 ft. by 4 ft. by 7 ins. deep beneath a flint cairn, above which was a child inhumation with a food-vessel (in D.C.M.) and a cremation beneath an inverted biconical urn. In the top of the mound was an extended inhumation. The other contained three primary inhumations, and two further inhumations only 1 ft. above them, all in a grave 5 ft. in diam. and nearly 5 ft. deep beneath a flint cairn, above which were two inhumations. (Archaeologia xxx, 331, nos. 2 & 3; C.T.D., mopr, nos. 26 & 30.) Of Cunnington's two barrows, both previously disturbed, one contained remains of a large cairn, two inhumations and fragments of three urns, and the other parts of an inhumation in a cairn (MS., nos. 24 & 25).
A group of five round barrows running in an irregular east-west line on the crest of a ridge immediately south of the A35 (Roman road RR 4f). They are listed by Grinsell as Winterborne St Martin 6, 7, 8, 8c and 8d, and by RCHME as Winterborne St Martin 114-118. RCHME suggest that two of this group were excavated by Sydenham and Warne in 1839-40 (see SY 69 SW 90 and 91), whereas Grinsell attributed these excavations to the Rew barrow group (SY 69 SW 49 and associated monuments). Both RCHME and Grinsell note that 2 of the barrows in this Third Milestone group were excavated by E Cunnington in 1885, though again it is not clear which barrows he actually dug into. Grinsell assigned these excavations different barrow numbers (Winterborne ST Martin 8a and 8b) whilst acknowledging that it was probably 2 of the barrows already recorded by him that had been dug into (!). Cunnington found that both of the barrows had been dug into previously, perhaps by Sydenham and Warne. One contained the remains of a large cairn (a central cairn of flints covered by earth and chalk was a common feature of barrows excavated in the vicinity by Sydenham and Warne) plus two inhumations and sherds of three pottery vessels. The other contained a smaller cairn, within which were "parts of a skeleton". All 5 barrows were previously recorded here (see description). All have now been recorded separately (see associated monument records).
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