Lansdown Barrows

Also known as:
Fair Field Barrows and Monument No. 203734
Nearest town:
Bath (5km SE)
OS reference:
ST725687
OS sheet:
172
Latitude:
51° 24' 57.99 N
Longitude:
2° 23' 43.78 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Lansdown Barrows (Round Barrow(s)) by pure joy

One of the lansdown barrows – 29.12.2003. My other pic came out even flatter!

Image credit: Martin Bull
pure joy
pure joy Apr 21, 2004

Articles

Lansdown Barrows

S
swallowhead Jan 11, 2018

Visited yesterday. The larger barrow is extremely overgrown with brambles and several small trees. It is difficult to see where it begins, but I would estimate around 30-40 feet in diameter. At the centre it reaches a height of 5-6 feet. I remember it being a much more impressive feature a couple of decades ago, very visible from the road when driving past, before it became as scrubbed over as it is now.

There is a drawing of this barrow from 1783 on the British Library website, just behind Rose Cottage with a large ash tree growing on it. bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/topdrawings/a/largeimage85779.html

The tree is also visible on the Harcourt Masters Turnpike map of 1786/7, where mound is shown as a very prominent feature. The other two barrows are not shown on the map.

The largest of the confluent round barrows in the field is around 3 feet in height, the smaller one to the NW is around 2 feet.

The field is marked on the 1841 tithe map as ‘Fair Close’, presumably this was where the Lansdown Fair was held.

Lansdown Barrows

C
CARL Jun 16, 2010

As per my notes on Lansdown Camp Barrow Cemetery I couldn’t make out any barrows for this site either. I did visit in the middle of summer so perhaps the grass was too high to make them out? Either way, they can’t be very big.

Lansdown Barrows

moss
moss Feb 8, 2004

Pair of barrows as specified by Purejoy. There are another two pairs, one on the racecourse and the other on Littledown. These 6 barrows are the only intact barrows left on Greatdown and Littledown, except for a singleton further down the road. But there are also many destroyed barrows in this area.

Lansdown Barrows

pure joy
pure joy Jan 3, 2004

Lansdown Barrows – 29.12.2003

These two plain looking round barrows are Scheduled Ancient Monuments. The ‘Magic’ website just confirms that they are scheduled as ‘BA32’, and are described as “Two Round Barrows N Of Blathwayt Arms”. There’s not much to see except for two lumps in a strange scrubby triangular piece of land, that has probably only been left alone because of the existence of the barrows. The barrows are sandwiched between the road and Bath racecourse on the east and west, and a few houses and the Golf Course car park to the south and north. ‘Civilisation’ is creeping towards the barrows, with the new cottage next to the Clubhouse helping to pay for the newly tarmaced car park. The southern barrow is significantly larger than the other barrow.

Miscellaneous

Lansdown Barrows
Round Barrow(s)
Chance
Chance Oct 14, 2012

Details of Barrows on Pastscape

Two confluent bowl barrows and a single bowl barrow in the South corner of Fair Field, Lansdown. Excavations located inhumations and cremations.

[ST 7252 6870 & 7254 6868] TUMULI [NR] (1)
Two barrows excavated in 1908 one of which was a long barrow situated in the fork of the two paths leading from the turnstile in the south corner of Fair Field, Lansdown. A walled cairn, with an extended inhumation and a secondary cremation with a broken cinerary urn and incense cup were found. It may have contained a food-vessel primary burial. The second barrow was a round barrow but larger than the former. It contained an inhumation and two inurned cremations. Williams (3) seems to accept both as round barrows. (2-3)
‘A’ 0.6m high has the appearance of being two confluent bowl barrows but this shape may have resulted from the 1908 excavation. It is not a long barrow.
‘B’ is a large bowl barrow 2.0m high with a hollow in the centre.
Resurveyed at 1/2500. (4) Additional reference, field report (5)

Miscellaneous

Lansdown Barrows
Round Barrow(s)
moss
moss Dec 22, 2005

These pair of barrows lie adjacent to the road, on the opposite side of the road is an old farmhouse. And hereby hangs a tale – for many months I have spied this farmhouse from afar, and have always been able to locate through its opposing chimneys the monument on Cherhill down (30 kms) in the distance, allowing me to focus on Silbury and Avebury. Not exactly a blinding white flash, but the penny dropped when I remembered there was an old chapel which had been embraced in the farmhouse building, giving the whole building an east/west alignment., in fact it sits at an awkward angle to the road – which in itself is probably roman/prehistoric track.
So was this an early holy place settled maybe by the “desert” monks, who set up in opposition, or maybe on top of these tumuli, and the thin thread of religion continued down through the ages. What makes it more conclusive is that there is a holy well about 500 yards from the chapel, its called St.Alpege (much later saint) Well.
Having written that, no way am I implying that there is a “straight line” to Avebury, its just happenstance and the strange things that happen between earth and sky!!

Topics

How many barrows? 3
S
swallowhead
Jul 2017

Sites within 20km of Lansdown Barrows

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