Pole’s Wood South

Also known as:
Monument No. 330157
Nearest town:
Chipping Norton (14km ENE)
OS reference:
SP167263
OS sheet:
163
Latitude:
51° 56' 4.08 N
Longitude:
1° 45' 25.45 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Pole’s Wood South (Long Barrow) by Jane

The little cist, exposed at the north end of the barrow.

Image credit: Jane Tomlinson
Jane
Jane Jan 26, 2004

Articles

Pole’s Wood South

thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Mar 8, 2009

Made my way here from The Tump on 6.3.2009. As I walked up the hill towards the barrow, shotgun firing started up very close behind me, which added some urgency to my approach – I had already noticed a few piles of feathers along the edges of the field! By the time I got to the barrow my heart was pounding (I’m not very brave when it comes to the prospect of being shot, I’m afraid), so I skirted around the west end of the barrow to the north side, where I startled some pheasants and a group of deer. The wood here is full of game and I think I must have arrived mid-cull.

As Jane mentioned, this is a long barrow worthy of the name. Unfortunately the shooting started up again, even closer than before, so I didn’t get much of a chance to loiter. I snatched a couple of photos of the north side and east end before making a swift exit towards Upper Swell long barrow.

Pole’s Wood South

Jane
Jane Jan 26, 2004

This is a really big long barrow and not overly trashed. On the edge of woodland, it hasn’t suffered under the plough and its shape, height, total length and significance is clear. Punctuated by mature trees along the top, its outline is still relatively smooth and straight. And to my pleasant surprise I found two stones and a bit of rubble making up a little stone cist on the top, small enough to curl up in. What a great long barrow!

Folklore

Pole’s Wood South
Long Barrow
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Apr 4, 2005

The antiquarian Reverend David Royce (a Victorian rector of Nether Swell) said the barrow had been “seen at times, by those gifted with second sight, swathed in unearthly flame”.

Blimey.

(’Gloucestershire Barrows’ – Grinsell and O’Neil – Proc Brist Glos Arch Soc 1960)

Miscellaneous

Pole’s Wood South
Long Barrow
Chance
Chance Jun 10, 2014

Details of long barrow on Pastscape

(SP 16732637) Long Barrow (NR) A Severn-Cotswold type long barrow, 173 feet long, 52 feet wide and 8 1/2 feet high orientated NE-SW, excavated by Greenwell and Rolleston in 1874. Excavation of the rounded east end revealed the wall enclosing the barrow, 5 feet high in the east and the ‘horns’ but no megalithic portal. Large upright flagstones, with large stones arranged against them sloping in a roof-shaped fashion on either side, formed the centre of the mound, probably for the whole length. Transverse dry stone walls in one instance formed a passage. A chamber, 24 feet from the west end on the north side of the barrow contained the remains of nine bodies, animal bones and two small pieces of plain pottery. The passage, which may have opened out to the exterior of the barrow, escaped rifling and an almost perfect skeleton of a man and those of a woman and child were found. Over the north horn burials of a later date were found and also a Neolithic ‘B’ bowl now in the British Museum.
Three Saxon burials, two saucer brooches, one of which is in the Royce collection at Stow-on-the-Wold, the other with an iron knife in the Ashmolean Museum and an amber bead were found near the surface about 18 feet from the re-entering angle of the ‘horned’ east end. A spindle-whorl was found 4 feet below the ground near the Saxon burials. (2-6)
A tree-covered long barrow 58m long, 20m wide (at its widest point) and up to 3.0m high. The barrow, higher and wider at its E end, shows no trace of either the revetment or the portal horns seen by Greenwell and Rolleston in 1874. The central area of the barrow is much disturbed with an exposed cist at its NW extent. No trace of side ditches, the barrow stands on high ground in arable farmland and is ploughed to its margin on all sides. Revised 1:2500. (7) Beaker pottery has been found in a secondary context at Poles Wood South long Barrow. (8)
The earthwork remains of the Neolithic long barrow described by the previous authorities were seen as an elongated mound centred at SP 1676 2636 on aerial photographs taken in 1963. The site was mapped from these photographs as part of the English Heritage: Gloucestershire NMP project. (10)

Sites within 20km of Pole’s Wood South

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