The Great Barrow

Also known as:
Monument No. 621861
Nearest town:
Wimborne Minster (10km S)
OS reference:
SU024102
OS sheet:
195
Latitude:
50° 53' 26.47 N
Longitude:
1° 57' 57.15 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of The Great Barrow (Artificial Mound) by texlahoma

The great barrow has had some serious clearence work done on it. 3/9/12

Image credit: texlahoma
texlahoma
texlahoma Sep 5, 2012
Image of The Great Barrow (Artificial Mound) by A R Cane

Strange that this was allowed to survive. Looking at an aerial map it’s evident that the area was festooned with barrows at one time, but with the exception of this beauty they’ve almost all been ploughed out.

Image credit: A R Cane
A R Cane
A R Cane Jun 22, 2011
Image of The Great Barrow (Artificial Mound) by Snuzz

We stood on top of the henge to admire the surrounding beauty, and of course, the Great Barrow. The size of this undisturbed treasure is large from a distance, and we were sorely tempted to get closer, if it had not been for the barbed wire and electric fence surrounding the field.

Image credit: Snuzz
Snuzz
Snuzz Jan 12, 2005
Image of The Great Barrow (Artificial Mound) by phil

South-east of Knowlton Henge is this huge overgrown barrow with trees on it. It is said to have a double ditch around it (not visisble)

phil
phil Dec 27, 2001

Articles

The Great Barrow

C
CARL Oct 15, 2014

When visiting Knowlton Henge the barrow is unmissable.
It is in a private field next to the henge (full of sheep at the time) and does not have a public right of way to it. The field is overlooked by a farm house who I assume own the field?

If you want to access the field for a closer look it is easy over a low metal fence.
I chose to view from the henge as there didn’t seem much to gain from getting closer – other than perhaps an upset farmer?

The barrow is large but totally overgrown with several large trees and many bushes.
I would imagine climbing to the top of it would be tricky.

Miscellaneous

The Great Barrow
Artificial Mound
Chance
Chance May 24, 2014

Details of barrow on Pastscape

A large round barrow or mound, part of a major monument complex at Knowlton and of probable Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age date. Described in the RCHME Dorset Inventory as comprising a mound 135 feet in diameter and 21 feet high, surrounded by two concentric ditches, both largely levelled by ploughing. The inner ditch is separated from the base of the mound by a berm circa 15 feet across. The outer ditch is around 400 feet in diameter and about 35 feet wide. The air photo published by RCHME appears to show a distinct entrance causeway through the outer ditch on the northeast, althuogh the transcription shows it as a continuous feature. A pipe trench cut in July 1958 ran in a southwest-northeast direction, passing southeast of the mound but cutting across the outer ditch in two places. The pipe trench was fairly shallow in relation to the ditch, so a trial trench was excavated beside the pipe trench at the point where the latter crossed the south-southwest part of the barrow ditch. Constraints of time and space appear to have prevented a complete section being excavated. However, the ditch was shown to be 5.5 feet deep below the modern ground surface, and to be flat-bottomed. A sequence of fills was described briefly by the excavator. No artefacts were recovered. The barrow has been mapped from aerial photographs by EH’s Knowlton Circles Project.

Miscellaneous

The Great Barrow
Artificial Mound
Kammer
Kammer Jun 9, 2003

In his book The Silbury Treasure Michael Dames identifies the Great Barrow as a possible Harvest Hill (like Silbury but smaller) because of it’s size and proximity to Knowlton Henge:

Knowlton itself is 20 feet high, and surrounded by two concentric ditches (the outermost being 354 feet in diameter and 34 feet across)... The majestic scale of the edifice disqualifies it as a Bronze Age barrow, and since Neolithic barrows in Dorset are long, not round, a harvest hill function is a reasonable provisional attribute. Thus, though the Knowlton mound is called the Great Barrow, it is not at all likely to contain a burial except perhaps as a secondary internment, inserted at a later age.

Sites within 20km of The Great Barrow

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