formicaant

This is one of a number of barrows on the East Holme Firing range. The range is on heathland between the river Frome and the coast, to the north of the Purbeck hills. The only way to see the barrow is from the hills above with binoculars or a long camera lens.
The nearby Povington barrow was not visible, at only a metre in height it is probably obscured by vegetation at this time of year.
It appears to be in good condition when viewed through binoculars, MAGIC says it is 2 metres in height and 27 in diameter.

There is very little information I can find about this small oval hillfort just to the north of the West Dorset village of Cattistock. The only written reference I can find is in a small book by Phil Wilton called the “Castles of Dorset”.
He says some people think it to be natural, but he thinks it to be clearly manmade. Having visited I am pretty sure he is right, also M.A.G.I.C and the OS describe it as a hillfort.
There appears to be a round barrow in the interior, which unfortunately I couldn’t see from the valley below.
There is no direct access to this site, as the only footpath is much lower down the hill, from it the hillfort is invisible. The hillfort appears to be on private land.
If anybody else knows any more about it I would be glad to know.

This is an extended barrow cemetery of 11 barrows of various types which runs up a shallow valley to the north of Bere Regis. The single barrow in the photo is one of a group of three in the western side of the cemetery.
The group of three are on the east side of the valley, just north of Millum Head.

This is a group of 8 barrows south of the Bincombe and Came group. One of the barrows is a rare oval type having a length of 40 metres and width of 20 metres. This is one of less than 50 recorded examples.

These barrows are just west of Setta barrow and the Five barrows group. They run south to north on the top of a west facing ridge.
Apparently there are four in the group, but I could only see three. The southern one has a group of low stones in its centre. Not sure wether these are the remains of a burial chamber or cist. The central barrow appears relatively undamaged and is a medium sized bowl type. The north on is low and appears to have been damaged at some stage.

I went to this group prior to visiting Setta barrow which is a few hundred yards north east. They are a varied group in terms of size and are spread east to west across the ridge of a high hill. Some show signs of having been excavated, particularly the central one with the trig point on it.
The setting for these barrows is quite spectacular, with views across many miles of Exmoor. There are at least 6 other barrows within a short distance and an iron age hillfort a couple of miles to the north east.
One of the barrows in the group is a bell type barrow and is a real rarity , wessex fancy barrows aren’t usually found this far west.
I counted 8 in this group, all of which are pictured here. Having read Rhiannon’s previous info I did not attempt to look for the stone row.

A small group of four bowl barrows just to the north of the village of Chaldon Herring. These are in a valley to the south of a ridge which has the Five Marys group on it and from which these photos were taken. I could only see three of them from the hill above them, the one I couldn,t see is only slight and may be swamped by long grass. The Five Marys are the best place to see these slight barrows from.

I decided my my 8 year old nephew and 6 year old neice should see Stonehenge, as they hadn’t even heard of it. They were very impressed with the stones, but were more interested in the barrows because of the possibility of bodies being buried in them!
This is an extended group, the main set comprising 1 bowl and 3 bell barrows, a single bell and a twin bell, formed as 2 pairs. The bell barrows are particularly well formed types of they’re class. There are another 3 bowls and 1 bell outlying to the west.

A small, low bowl barrow in Powerstock Common nature reserve. The common is about a mile and a half north of Eggardon hillifort. Also in view are the barrows north of the hillfort.

This is part of an extended cemetery which stretches from west to east from Waterston Ridge to this site. From here Waterston is two miles away on a bridleway. This barrow is just below the ridge on its north side. The most prominent barrow is on the crest and is visible from Poundbury several miles to the south. I didn’t have time to get to it, as the heavens opened and it poured with rain.

This single bowl barrow is about 2 miles west of Pallington Clump on a military training area. The monument has a diameter of about 20 metres and is 1.2 metres in height. Magic says it has a ditch on the east and south sides, this is inside the danger area and wasn’t visible from the road. On the summit is a star shaped marker and it has been protected from military damage by large logs around the base.

This is a late prehistoric small enclosure. It is about 100 metres south of Sheep Down long barrow. On the western and eastern sides it consists of a single bank and outer ditch. The northern and southern ends are double banks with a ditch between them.
The site measures 45 metres along the east/west sides and 25 mtres along the north/south ends. The banks are 3.5 metres across 0.5 metres high. The surrounding ditch is ditch is 4 metres wide and 0.5 metres deep.
This was once thought to be roman, but as it does not conform in shape and size to known roman fortlets or signal stations, finds have now been found which show it’s earliest origins to be late bronze age.
The site was in use for many hundreds of years, if the pottery evidence from the enclosure are taken as evidence. These sites are usually associated with field systems and several exist within a short distance.

Another visit to this site to find three more barrows. These are all to the west of the two in my original posting. The central pair are about 50 feet apart, the eastern one has been savagely “excavated”, probably in the 19th century. The second of the pair is in much better condition. Both are covered in low scrub, but appear to have been cleared of thick vegetation recently, I suspect I have walked straight by them in the past.
The next two in the group are a bell type about 100m west of the central pair. The next barrow is a bowl type with an outer ditch and bank, difficult to see as it is covered in dense foliage.
The fifth barrow is the most westerly of the group and is just inside the heathland / forested area of the ridge on which the cemetery is sited. It is covered in youngish beech trees and does not appears to have been dug up in the past.
Athough most of the site is now tree and gorse covered these barrows would have been in clear sight from barrows to the north. These are Double barrow and a pair at Tolpuddle ball which are hidden in dense undergrowth.
There are at least another 3 barrows to be found in this group, inclubing a bell type and a bowl with an outer bank.
All these barrows are now surrounded by a ring of posts with chamfered tops with a carved M on the angle, these appear to be placed by the forestry commission to protect the monuments. I have also seen this at the nearby Yon barrow in Wareham forest.

This bell barrow is south of the extended cemetery on Waterston ridge. I have made it a seperate entry because it is a good example of the comparatively rare bell type of round barrow. Of the 1800 or so barrows in Dorset only 70 or so are of this type.
This barrow is in pretty good condition, particularly in comparison with most of the others in the nearby group. The farmer has deliberately ploughed around the monument , thus helping to preserve it. It is 20metres in diameter, 2.5 in height, has a berm of 2.5 metres in width and a 4 metre wide ditch, part of which has been lost to the plough.

This strung out barrow cemetery sits on and around a ridge of hills north-west of Dorchester. It is neatly split into east and west by the B3143 road to the Piddle valley to the north. Of the 8 or so barrows in the group the best preserved is Grinsell’s Puddletown 13 in the western part of the cemetery. Most of the rest in Grinsell’s book Dorset Barrows have been very much reduced by ploughing, the book having been published in the 1950’s.

A pair of round barrows to the south of the Ox Drove. Both are bowl types, are low in height and appear to have been excavated at some time. The pair of barrows on Trow down are about 1/2 a mile to the west and Winklebury hillfort is another mile further.

Two round barrows north of the Ox Drove, Winklebury hillfort is about a mile to the west of these mounds.

A return visit to this site, not so peaceful this time as the army were playing war very close by. This time I was able to get onto part of the hill where the barrows are. I could only get photos of the northern three, they appear to be in good condition although low and covered in bracken.
It’s an odd site this with, what appear to be two sets of barrows on different levels but well worth a visit for it’s oddness and peacefulness – just don’t go on a thursday!

This barrow took me some time to find, three trips in all. It is in Grinsell’s Dorset barrows where it is described as “large”, suggesting he couldn’t find it either. I’m not surprised as the barrow is in a large plantation of conifers and appears to have been cleared fairly recently.
It has an external ditch about 2 metres wide and the vestiges of a bank. There were several badger setts showing recent footprints on the north side. The forestry commission have marked the site by placing angle topped wooden posts at the four cardinal points, I assume this is a protective measure.
M.A.G.I.C. gives its dimensions as 15m in diameter by 2.45m in height and say it is built from turf,earth and sand.

This is a barrow cemetary on the northern edge of the New Forest. Access is easy as a large layby on the busy A31 gives direct access. Also to the north of the site is a large car park, one of many provided by the New Forest countrypark.
The barrows are in some of the worst condition I have ever seen. This contrasts with the entries on M.A.G.I.C. and may well mean that I missed some small ones that haven’t been damaged. The four pictured have all been robbed or very poorly excavated. The largest on the site has a large crater in the centre of it and is the least damaged!
The small, low barrows all had large cross shaped trenches across them and look ok from a distance, the damage only becomes really apparent up close.
Having said all that, the site is worth visiting and had I had more time I would have visited the hillfort in the forest nearby, Castle Piece.

This bowl barrow sits on the floor of the river valley to the south west of Cold Kitchen hill. The barrow is 20 metres in diameter by 3.4 metres in height. The river Wylye flows past the site.

A rare saucer type round barrow to the east of the long barrow. These low barrows are very susceptible to any kind of agricultural activities especially ploughing and they don’t survive well.

These banks and ditches are linear boundaries on Biddcombe down and Whitepits down. The earthworks run for 2 km along the southern slopes of the hill on which Cold kitchen long barrow sits.
There is some speculation as to its purpose and it is possibly the political boundary between the Durotriges and the Belgae. They are not large enough to be of any military purpose, unlike Bokerley dyke which performs the same purpose in Hampshire. Also it is sited half way up a steep hill.
At its deepest it is 3 feet deep and 15 feet wide. There are gaps in the dyke where it crosses a valley and where modern tracks cross it.

This is a substantial monument, being 230 feet long, 72 feet wide and 12 feet in height. In addition the side ditches are still over 30 feet wide by 4 feet deep. It is situated just below the crest of Cold Kitchen hill facing north and overlooking the Wylye valley. The siting of the barrow is interesting as it sits in a fold of the hill and can,t be seen until you’re very close to it.
The barrow is orientated NW-SE and is rectangular in plan. It shows no signs of ever having been excavated which must be quite unusual.
It’s fairly easy to get to, but the hill is very steep and parking is limited in the village of Kingston Deverill.
It appears in an Anglo-Saxon charter as Lang Beorh and the name Cold Kitchen apparently alludes to a celtic name meaning hill of the wizard.

This bowl barrow sits on top of a hill rising out of the local heathland. It is about 1/2 a mile from Bull barrow and is 22 metres in diameter and about 1 1/2 metres in height.
The barrow is covered in vegetation but I did manage to walk up it. The centre of the barrow has a large rectangular depression in it. Any surrounding ditch which may have existed has now become infilled and cannot be seen.

Not to be confused with the other barrow on Bulbarrow hill near Rawlsbury hillfort, this heathland barrow is near the small village of Holt. It is in reasonable condition and is 16 metres in diameter and about 1 1/2 metres in height. Around the north west edge is what remains of a 2 metre wide ditch.
It appears to have been opened at some point as the top is flat and has a slight dip in the middle. Two flint scrapers have been found where erosion has affected the mound.

This is a medium sized bowl barrow, 22metres in diameter and 2 metres high. It is to the north of both Round Pound and the Wardstone barrow and lies just below the crest of the hill. It overlooks nearby barrow cemeteries on Winfrith heath rather than the southern hillforts near Lulworth. I assume it used to have bushes or shrubs on it, hence the name, but now it is clean of all vegetation and is in good condition. The farmer or land owner has surrounded the barrow with thick wooden posts in order to protect it from plough damage.

This barrow lies on the crest of a hill a few hundred metres from the coast. It’s a bit scruffy and covered in nettles and brambles. It is 15 metres in diameter and 1 1/2 metres in height.
It was excavated in1867 and a cremation in an upright late Bronze Age urn with a flat stone on top of it was found, but has since sadly been destroyed in a fire.

I don’t know a lot about this site, magic says the only dateable object found was a piece of Iron Age pottery. So I have to assume it’s from that time and is some sort of enclosure / animal pen, whatever it is it’s quite a substantial earthwork. The embankmet is built of chalk and turf and is 2 metres in height. The maximum distance between banks is 14 metres and encloses an area of about 0.6 of a hectare.
Close to several barrows, you can see Hambury Tout, Bindon Hill and Flowers Barrow from here. It’s on the coast path and can be walked to from a free National Trust car park at Ringstead.

Visited these and the nearby barrows and stone circle, and unless I’m particularly blind at the moment I couldn’t see the broken stones. I may just have missed them or have they been removed or taken away for repair?

I found these barrows while walking back from Tregeseal circle in the pouring rain. I had seen them marked on the map but that doesn’t mean you’ll find them so this was a bonus. I found 4 distinct barrows of varying sizes all to the north of the stone circle and east of the holed stones.
To the north of this site across the road are Chun Quoit and castle and Boswens Menhir.

These two barrows are north of the Goonhilly down and Dry tree sites. There are three here but I could only see two of them. Both were visible from the road past them and appear to be in pretty good condition.

This is a large oval hillfort which has had a lot of damage done to it by quarrying. I could see very recent signs of continuing damage in the form of crude “sculptures” made of piled stones. This was on the south side adjacent to a stone cross set up as a war memorial.
Having mentioned the amount of damage, there are still substantial remains of banks and ditches to be seen. Also on this hill are two further round enclosures below the hillfort to the north. There are entrances to the west and east.
To get here I parked in the tiny hamlet of Balwest and walked up the footpath. The path is made up of compacted stones and looks to have been built to serve the quarries to the east of the hillfort. One of the quarries was where china clay was first discovered.

Scissorman is absolutely right, the views from this hillfort are some of the best you’ll see anywhere. It appears to be made up of a single rampart on the south and east sides where the land falls steeply away. The northern and western sides appears more complicated with inner and outer walls/banks and ditches.
The hillfort was donated to the national trust and is dedicated to the memory of all the women who died locally in WWII.

This is a substantial hillfort, the banks of which are constructed from granite boulders. The construction is similar to others in the area but is considerably bigger than say, Chun castle. Also it appears to be formed of two concentric rings of ramparts and ditches (apparently there were four)
Within the interior is a dividing bank next to which is a stone built castle-like folly. The folly appears to built from stones robbed from the structure of the ramparts, they seem to be of similar size and there is a gap in the bank next to it.
The only obvious entance I could see was on the west side, there is a stagger in the ramparts here.
I got here by using a footpath about half a mile along the road from Chysauster. It’s not a very steep climb but was very wet and muddy after 24 hours of heavy rain. I was the only person there in the hour or so I was here.

This is a group of ten barrows on Hardown hill above the hamlet of Ryall. The barrows are a group of six and four – five of the group of six are shown here. These are mostly very slight and are covered in gorse and bracken, even so they are visible except for the lowest.
The group of four are very small indeed – 9 paces across by 1 foot in height with exception of a possible Dorset disc type. I didn’t attempt to find these today, this is a winter job I think.
To the immediate south is the back of the Golden Cap cliffs, whilst to the west may be seen the top of Colmer’s hill. Also within sight are the hillforts – Pilsdon Pen, Lambert’s Castle and Coney’s Castle all to the north west.

I visited these large barrows whilst visiting the row of 5 to the north. They are much bigger than the northern set, the three still in exitence are sized as follows:
6- 36 yards by 8 feet high 7- 40 yards by 11 feet high
8- 36 yards by 71/2 feet high
9- destroyed.
9a- virtually destroyed.
Dimensions are taken from L.V.Grinsell – Somerset Barrows Part1 – South and West.

I visited these barrows today there are 5 in a row with a common bank surrounding them. The bank is probably not ancient, it is typical of the C.18. Norman Quinnell thinks they are confluent bell barrows.
They are sized from west to east as follows:
1- 24 yards by 5 feet high
2- 20 yards by 5 feet high
3- 24 yards by 61/2 feet high
4- 20 yards by 6 feet high
5- 30 yards by 7 feet high

This information is from L.V.Grinsell’s Somerset Barrows Part 1: West and South.

A row of three bowl barrows on a slight rise on Stoborough heath. These are north of the Purbeck hills and form part of a spread out barrow cemetery covering most of the heathland in this area. They are on a farm and cannot be walked upon without permission. However they are easily visible from the narrow road which leads to the small village of Arne and its nature reserve.
Orientated roughly west to east, they vary in size from 27 metres by 2 in height to 13 metres by 0.8 in height. They are also known as Arne 13, 14 and 15.

This is an extended barrow cemetery on military land. There is a footpath across the site and the two barrows photographed here so far are the most easily accessible.
The most prominent is to the north of the footpath and is a large low bowl barrow covered in heather at this time of the year.
The other one is to the south of the path is in worse condition, having been damaged by tanks in the past. Happily now it is fenced off. It has an O.S. trig point on top of it and a flint knife and bronze dagger were found when a flagpole was erected. The finds are now in Dorset County museum.
There is another barrow to the north of these two marked imaginatively on O.S. maps as “Round Barrow”. I couldn’t find it and didn’t look too hard as it appears to be on an explosives range used by the Royal Marines to practice blowing up stuff, so I didn’t fancy hopping fences to look for it.

Visited the site today to see if I could find the long barrow to the north east, no luck I’m afraid. The undergrowth is very thick at this time of the year and I could easily have walked straight past it.
The barrow on this post is very easy to find, park on the other side of the road in the car park of Martin Down nature reserve. The road here is extremely busy and you can’t see very far either way. The barrow is a few hundred yards to the north on the east side of the track.

This may look like a strange inclusion but the building actually stands on top of a barrow. The site is south of the village of Puncknowle, on a hill called the Knoll, from which the village takes part of its name. The name is pronounced punnel as in funnel.
The barrow itself is about 20 metres across and 4 feet in height. Grinsell very nicely describes it this way – as having a  “Tiny hovel (watch-tower?) on it. Site of finding of cinerary urn in 1908.” Dorset Proc xxxv , p. Li.
The building is described in MAGIC as as lookout post built in about 1800 and is grade II listed. An earlier map calls the hill Punknoll Beacon.
The watch tower is well placed as the views go on for miles. To the east is Abbottsbury Castle hillfort and the barrows on Tulk’s hill and Limekiln Hill. To the west is Golden Cap to the north Chilcombe Hill and Shipton Hill.

I had time to visit this site today, there is some doubt as to it’s being a barrow, Grinsell seems to think it natural. Given the name and its appearance it looks ok to me, I don’t know whether Grinsell visited the barrow, although he did get to see a great many. Anyway as it is today only the landward side in the photo is still in good condition, the seaward side having fallen away at some time. From it can be seen the nearby Sandy barrow on a hilltop about a quarter of a mile inland to the north. Behind can be seen the Island of Portland several miles to the southwest.

This barrow, seen from nearby Goggin’s barrow is on a hilltop just inland from the coast near to the village of Osmington. I didn’t have time to walk here today, but as a footpath runs close to it I will get closer to it soon.

This is an intriguing site, which if it is genuinely megalithic would certainly add greatly to the small amount of stones in Dorset.
The site itself falls into three groups in a valley bottom south of the village of Corscombe. The whole area of the stones is about 50 metres north / south by about 20 metres east / west.
The southern are two recumbent stones laying next to each other, giving the appearance of having been toppled. These are the largest stones, one being 8 1/2 feet long, the other about 6 feet. The smaller of the two has a blackthorn tree growing around it’s base.
The three standing stones are to the north, the central and largest stone is 6 1/2 feet high and has a pointed top. The next in size leans against the other and has a broken lower corner. The smallest of the three is reputedly known as the “Devil’s Seat” or “Granny’s Armchair” and does resemble a chair.
To the west of these are a group of six smaller stones laying in the grass in an arc. In amongst these and between them and the standing stones are smaller stones or fragments of larger, broken stones.
This site has been variously described as a destroyed long barrow, a disrupted stone circle or just a random colection of stones at the bottom of a steep sided valley.
Whatever the answer to this place is, someone has made an effort to lean two of the stones against each other, and the two southern stones have been there long enough for an elderly tree to have grown around one of them. Although not a scheduled ancient monument, english heritage does give it the monument number 195903.
It may be pure coincidence but just to the north of the site is a road and track named barrow lane.
If anyone knows any more about these stones I’d be very interested to know about them.

This is another heathland barrow cemetery, the third I’ve visited today. These are the three most accessible on the site and all are in good condition. They vary in size from one of the smallest I’ve seen anywhere to a 2 1/2 metre high example. They are on a plateau which overlooks the valley of the river Piddle to the north and the Purbeck hills to the south.
There is another set of barrows on a lower slope of the heath to the east which I will try to visit soon.

Another visit to this barrow cemetery, this time with more success in terms of finding the mounds on it. I found another five bowl types and a bell barrow.
Four of the bowl barrows were strung out along a ridge at the southern edge of the site and were very overgrown. All appeared in good condition and were on the smaller end of the scale.
The most westerly was close to the first barrow I found last time and appeared to be the largest on the hilltop.
The bell barrow is lower down the hill, to the east of the main group and is behind a large modern reservoir. It is in reasonable condition with a wide berm and part of the outer bank is visible on the northern edge. This barrow is surrounded by trees and is difficult to get a decent photo of as you have to get very close to it.

This barrow cemetery is south of Whitcombe vale and southwest of Blacknoll hill. There are four bowl barrows in the group in a line which runs northwest to south east. The three most northern barrows are on prominent rises on the heathland. The most easterly is on pasture with horses grazing on it, from the fence which surrounds the field it appears to have a sarsen type boulder on top of it.
All the heathland barrows are fully covered with gorse and bracken at this time of the year and are difficult to get close to.

A single barrow in the middle of a field in the former hamlet of Fryer Mayne. This is now a suburb of Broadmayne and is a farm and a large house. The barrow has some animal damage and is obscured by foliage at the moment.

This barrow is immediately north of the Poor Lot barrow cemetery. Magic says it is 23m across and just under a metre high. It is dwarfed by the horrible pylon behind it and was not easy to photograph, I had to stand in the boot of my car to see over the hedge!