This is a large bowl barrow at the western end of Ballard Down, to the south is the small hamlet of Ulwell from which the barrow takes it's name. It looks in pretty good condition, although there are signs of an excavation on the crown, the damage is not too bad. Some damage has been done to the eastern edge by the disturbance created by a stone obelisk. This is a curiosity, it was placed there to comemorate the coming of clean, fresh water to nearby Swanage, the reservoir is to the south of the barrow. The obelisk was originally in London, outside the Mansion House. It was removed from the barrow in 1941 so as not to be guide to german bombers, it was re-erected in 1952 by the army.
I approached the hill from the north, Studland side as it is much less steep than the southern Swanage side. I parked by a farm gate, it was obvious many people had parked here before me. The hill is pretty steep but Ballard Down itself levels out and is a nice place to see the surrounding sites, megalithic or otherwise.
(SZ 02238132) Tumulus (NR) (1)
A turf covered bowl barrow, 23.0m. diameter and 1.9m high in the west. There are evident traces of a ditch in the eastern quadrant which are only slight elsewhere. Square hollow on top. (2)
SZ 02238132. Ulwell Barrow, ditched bowl barrow, 74ft diameter and 6ft high with ditch 12ft wide, on the west end of Ballard Down. There is an excavation hollow in top and the barrow is cut by a hedge-bank on the north. On the south qhere crossed by the parish boundary is a collapsed obelisk dated 1892 (shown) on OS 6"). Excavated by Austen in 1857 who found a primary contracted inhumation, the skull surrounded by flat stones, in a chalk-cut grave 8ft x 5ft, associated with a handled cup of fine red ware; antler fragments occurred in the grave filling. Near the centre of the mound were disarticulated inhumation with urn fragments and, slightly higher, a cremation under a flat stone with more urn fragments. In the top of the mound were Iron Age and/or Romano British debris and many flint chippings. (3,4) The obelisk which stands on the south slope of the barrow was reerected in 1972 and stands to its full height. (Not an antiquity) 4/89 Surveyed at 1:2500. (6) Both inhumations were made, the intrusive one being Anglo-Saxon. (7)
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