formicaant

I have known about this for some time and have not posted it until I actually saw it for myself. I’m not suggesting for one minute that this is some sort of megalithic chair, but the large rear stone is intriguing. I know this must go in the dodgy category of postings and have e-mailed the Evershot village website to see if anyone knows how long this has been there in its current form, as yet I’ve had no reply.
Only the two side stones are slotted to take the concrete seat base, the rear stone is undamaged. The large stone is over a metre in height a must weigh several tons. The stone looks much the same from behind and has no obvious signs of modern tooling.
This site appears in Peter Knights “Ancient stones of Dorset”, a book of which I am quite wary, it’s emphasis on leylines doesn’t appear very sound historically.
I’d be interested in the opinion of anyone else who’s seen this or knows anything about it.

I finally found the time to visit this site. I spent three hours here and barely scratched the surface. This is a massive place covering about one hundred acres. There is a lot to see, but like many similar sites it’s difficult to photograph, espescially when the grass is high.
Preserved in small woodland areas are several round barrows, two of which I managed to find. The most southerly is in fine condition with no obvious signs of damage. The second, near Jackman’s cross is very overgrown and difficult to get close to.
To the south across the valley of the Frome is the Penn hill / Seven barrow plantation, while to the north is Smacam down.
There is a good path up a gently sloping hill and stunning views for 360 degrees, well worth a visit for them alone.

This is an extended group of barrows of various sizes within and on the edges of woodland. Most of them are in dense, mixed forest and are hard to find, I know, I’ve looked. Some of them may only be accessible when the trees are felled, as with the nearby Rain Barrows.
Parking is easy and the footpaths are good, the forest is about four miles from Dorchester.

This is a surprising place of peace and quiet, slap in the middle of military firing ranges. It is a nature reserve and when I visited the only sound I could hear was birdsong.
It is a mixed barrow cemetery containing about ten barrows, two of which are bell types. Six bowl barrows are on a low hill called Coombe Beacon. The two bells are on the low part of the heath, both have a visible berm and the northern still has traces of a ditch and bank.
The southern barrow has a small, low bowl barrow attached to the northeast edge.
One very small barrow is now fenced off, presumably to protect it.

This is a bell barrow on a rise above the excellently named Slap Bottom, the best photo I could get was from a a distance as the barrow is covered in gorse and bracken.

This is a bowl barrow on Cranes / Church moor. M.A.G.I.C says its 13 metres in diameter and 1.3 metres high. I couldn’t get close to it, as the area has ground nesting birds with young at the moment. Apparently the there is a ditch and bank surrounding it, I will try to get closer to the barrow in the winter.

This is a large bowl barrow on the highest point in the Purbecks. It is fairly knocked about, there is a large chunk taken out of the west side of it. Also there are 2 large blocks of Purbeck stone on top of it, they aren’t ancient and have a north/south line and a diagonal scribed across them.These were the base of a windmill, they must weigh several tons each and must have taken some effort to get up the hill.
About a hundred yards north is a small, low barrow with a dry stone wall across it. Opposite the large barrow, across a valley is a celtic field system.
I have now found out that the barrow has been modified in shape when it was used as a windmill base.

There are three barrows in this woodland setting. The easterly one is a large bowl barrow in a low lying area, it is 75 feet in diameter and 9 feet high. The berm is only well preserved on the west side and there is a large excavation scar on its summit.
The next barrow west is a small bowl barrow on the highest point of Canon hill. Presumably for its protection it is fenced off. It looks in reasonable condition it is 10 feet across and 2 1/2 high.
The third barrow I couldn’t find, from the map it appears to be in dense under growth.

A medium sized bowl barrow on the West Knighton and Warmwell boundaries. It is 18 metres in diameter and 2 metres high. It was damaged by the military during the second world war, but is not in bad condition. It is set in mixed woodland surrounded by huge holes in the ground from gravel quarrying.
Huck appears to be a corruption of hook – referring to it’s position at the corner of three parish boundaries.

This is a medium sized bowl barrow above the tiny hamlet of Whitcombe. It is 28 metres in diameter and 3 metres high. There is evidence of past excavation on the summit and it is covered in beech trees and scrub. A low bank and fence cross the barrow which marks the parish boundaries of Whitcombe and West Stafford.
To the south, on the skyline can be seen Came wood and at least 4 round barrows.
In the adjacent field I found 4 pieces of worked flint in about 10 minutes, showing this place has been in use for thousands of years.
On a flat site near the hamlet below this monument, a very rich burial was found. Called the Whitcombe Warrior it is of a late Iron Age male buried with a sword in its scabbard, an iron spearhead and various other pieces of iron equipment. The burial was removed intact and is on public display in Dorset County Museum.

This bowl barrow is very similar to the nearby Mag’s barrow, several hundred metres to the west. It is in the garden of a large house and appears in good condition. It has a 3 metre wide ditch surrounding it, it is 25 metres across and 2 metres in height.

A bowl barrow in the garden of a very posh house, I took my photo very quickly in case they called the police! The barrow is 25 metres in diameter and 2 metres in height. Apparently it has an intact ditch, I couldn’t see it as the plant cover was too dense.
This and the similar Ralph’s barrow a few hundred metres to the east are lucky survivals in the middle of a housing estate. These barrows are part of a strung out cemetery on the former Parley heath, of which only a small part remains.
The street is very helpfully named after the monument.

This site is on a hill to the north of the village of Winterbourne Abbas. I saw`and photographed 2 bowl barrows, M.A.G.I.C. shows another bowl and a long barrow neither of which I could see. The long barrow was disputed by L.V.Grinsell when he visited the site, he thought it was twin bowl barrows whose definition had been reduced by ploughing. I wasn’t looking for this today and it may well still exist, I’ll have another look soon.
Both the bowl barrows appeared in reasonable condition and were to the west of the public footpath.

I have concentrated on the barrows on this site of which there are said to be eleven. I managed to find and photograph only two of them on this visit. This is a large site with at least two other sets of earthworks on it one of which is said to be of iron age origin.
Sited above and overlooking Christchurch, Hengistbury head can be see to the south east. I will be adding the earthworks and other barrows in the near future as I will visit again soon.

This is a low bowl barrow on the western half of the heath. It is next to the road which passes north of the heath. The barrow is not in very good condition, it was excavated in the early 1940’s. Its survival is lucky as some barrows were lost during the construction of a second world war airfield.

Pictured here are two large tree covered round barrows. The southern barrow is a large bell type, this is 104 feet in diameter and 7 feet in height. The other barrow is a bowl type to the north east of the bell, it is of similar size to it. The bowl has a distinct ditch surrounding most of its circumference.
There are other smaller barrows on this site which I will visit in the near future.

This is a small barrow cemetery, south of Setley plain. It is dominated by a large banked and ditched bell barrow. There are three smaller barrows marked as surrounding the large one. I could only see one small low round barrow to the north west of the large one.

This large bowl barrow is now completely surrounded by a modern housing estate. It is in relatively poor condition and is covered in large pine and cedar trees, it is surrounded by rhoddodendron bushes on its southern and eastern sides. This is probably one of the most accessible barrows anywhere.

There are three bell barrows and two bowl barrows on this rise on Lulworth heath. Two of the bell barrows seem to be in quite good condition and of medium size. The smaller of the three is hard to see from the road, which is the only way to see them. I could not see the bowl barrows at all. These barrows are on an M.O.D firing range. There are many barrows on these ranges, most of which can’t be seen or accessed, on this visit I could hear automatic gunfire close by.

Two unusual large disc type conjoined barrows. These are a rarity anywhere, but espescially in the New Forest. They sit atop a low plateau on the north west side of Setley plain. The northern is the smaller of the two and is overlapped by the larger southern barrow. They are of a similar size to the disc barrows on Oakley Down in Dorset. These barrows have larger mounds in the centre than most disc barrows, M.A.G.I.C. calls them “fancy barrows”. There is a single example south of the pair.

A rare type of round barrow. According to L.V.Grinsell; ” 93 feet overall diameter. On OWERMOIGNE boundary. The central mound is surrounded by a narrow berm, bank, and outer ditch. The bank and outer ditch are more massive than with the normal tree-clump circle, and may be ancient because the road, which follows the parish boundary, cuts through them, and is presumably later. The barrow is covered with firs.”
Information taken from Dorset Barrows 1959 P.D.N.H.A.S.
This describes accurately what can be seen today, the plastic portaloo is there for some road works a few feet away!

This visit I had time to have a proper look at this site. The feature you see when you first get here is an impressively big pair of banks and ditches, known as the double dykes. These are the main defensive feature for the settlement. They run north to south and cut across the narrowest point here.
Behind the banks is a field called Barn field in which there is a large bowl barrow in pretty good condition.
The next feature is Warren hill which is 90 metres in height and has steep sea cliffs on one side. It is a steep climb all the way round this hill, and it is an easily defensible position. On the hill there are several round barrows, the most easy to see was a low bowl type, gorse covered another 2 low ones.

A medium sized hillfort just inside the New Forest national park. Its in reasonable condition for the most part although it is cut through by a track leading to houses.
This is a univallte hillfort enclosing five acres. The bank is at its highest on the eastern side, as the west side slopes steeply away.

A large bowl barrow on heathland on the edge of the New Forest. This is in good condition with a complete outer bank and ditch. It has a flattish top and appears to have been excavated at some point. Its scheduled monument number is 20293.
The barrow is 25 metres in diameter and just over 2 metres high, the surrounding ditch is nearly 2 metres wide.
About three hundred metres to the west is a small bowl barrow. It is on OS maps, but not marked as a scheduled monument on M.A.G.I.C.

There are 7 barrows in this group which is to the north of Sheep down long barrow and south of the Big wood group. The three largest are in the centre and include a rare double bowl barrow with a figure of eight ditch. The cemetary straddles the road to Weymouth and is part of the south Dorset ridgeway group of barrows.

There appear to be about seven barrows in this group according to O.S. / Dorset Barrows / MAGIC. The largest and most prominent is just south of the old roman road to Exeter. It is on a ridge to the north west of Clandon barrow which is fully visible from it. The Dorset ridgeway is to the south of this group and a lot of the barrows on the ridge are visible.
There are four other similar sized barrows in this group, most are covered with trees. One of them is all but obscured. The cleanest one has recently been cleared of trees and has a large excavation cleft in its summit.
One of the group is all but ploughed out and another, to the south of the road is marked as destroyed on all the maps I’ve seen.
I also found two pieces of worked flint on the field margin of this site, one of which was a late neolithic / early bronze age end scraper.

This is a group of five barrows to the north east of Eggardon hillfort. Four of the five are loosely surrounding a large disc barrow, it has openings in the outer bank. Grinsell suggests it could be a form of henge or a disc barrow with some hengelike features. One of the round barrows impinges on the bank and is presumably later.
The southern most barrow has a trig point on it and is immediately east of the hillfort. Given that these sites are bronze age and in the case of the disc barrow/possible henge, neolithic they pre date the hillfort in it’s current form.

There is a long, steep climb to get to this site whichever route you take. It is situated on sea cliffs between the river valley outlets of Branscombe Mouth and Weston Mouth. Also the cliff on which it sits falls sharply on the landward side. This would have been a very safe place to be for a short time, defending it would have been easy, attack a nightmare.
Sadly about half of it has already fallen into the sea and the erosion is carrying on all the time. It shows itself now as single a low bank and silted up ditch, used as grazing for cattle. The surrounding cliffs are a confusing mess of banks and ditches of old quarry sites.
This is worth a visit but you do need to be pretty fit (it nearly did for me) and I wouldn’t do it in the rain.

I have now managed to take a picture of this barely visible site. It is north of the hillfort in a barrow cemetery of mixed types. The long barrow is very denuded by ploughing and can only be seen in certain light conditions. Grinsell thought it “a doubtful long barrow” English Heritage have done a geophysical survey and found ditches and a bank consistent with a long barrow.

Another ploughed round barrow north east of Little Bredy. Grinsell gives it the number 18 and said it was 30 feet across by 7 feet high, I very much doubt its that high now. There are other barrows in the vicinity and more will appear as I see them.

This single round barrow sits on top of Creech Barrow Hill. To the south east is Stone Hill Down long barrow.
The name incidentally means hill in three different languages :
Creech = cruic = celtic
Barrow = beorh = saxon
Hill = hille = norse.
Pendle hill in Lancashire is similar and there are others with names for hill in multiple languages or dialects.

There appear to be three bowl barrows and a long barrow here. I could only see two and one of those had recently been heavily ploughed. The long barrow is below the ridge of the hill and could not be seen from the road.

This is a nice set of five bowl and one very large pond barrow. The round barrows increase in size as you move east along the footpath. Three of them are in the field to the south of the wood. The barrow in the wood is to the immediate north of the pond barrow and appears to mirror it. This is the same as the pond barrow at Came Woods, is this a local thing or does this occur elsewhere?
To the immediate south of these barrows are another set of four which includes a double bowl barrow.
The pond barrow is 65 feet in diameter and 1 1/2 feet deep. The biggest bowl barrow is 30 feet across and 10 feet tall.

This group of barrows are to the east of the Poor Lot group. The Broad stone is just below them in the valley. Despite the name there appear to be five or six barrows in the group and are sited on the false crest of a hill. They vary in size and appear to be in reasonable condition, this area abounds with barrows of all kinds.
Below the ridge can be seen the bank of a pond barrow close to the A35.

There are images of this included in the entry for the Dorset Cursus (north to Martin’s down) but I think it deserves an entry of its own. I can understand why its used as there is nothing to see of the cursus end, having been totally ploughed out.
I have asked the question before as to whether this is a bank barrow, although marked as two long barrows on O.S. maps. I thought the similarity between this and Long Bredy bank barrow could give it the classification of bank barrow.
Having done some further reading / internet searching it seems I am not alone in considering it so. R.C.H.M.E. do list it as separate barrows, it is listed as Pentridge 21 and 22 but do question the separateness of the two. They also include it as a bank barrow in their Monument Class Descriptions listing.
Grinsell denotes it as Pentridge IIa/b, possibly hedging his bets. R. Loveday in “Inscribed across the land” includes it in his list of bank barrows. He gives the dimensions as 149m. in length and 20m in width. He does say that it was lengthened, as were both Maiden Castle (twice) and Long Bredy.

To the north of Blacknoll hill, I could see two small round barrows covered with gorse and bracken. To the northwest the large bell barrow Old Knowle and its smaller neighbour can be seen on the summit of their hill.

There are two rather low small round barrows close to the O.S. trig marker on the brow of this hill. From here Blacknoll hill can be seen to the north.

A medium sized bowl barrow north of Whitcombe Vale and Blacknoll. There are a scattering of barrows in this area which may be a large cemetery. Some are on high ground and others are on the flats in between.

Six bowl barrows on top of a hill on the Dorset heathland. The largest of the barrows, the most westerly has an O.S. trig point on it. The most easterly is of a similar size and the two in between are smaller. All are in reasonable condition, it looks like a recent fire has burnt off the gorse and bracken which usually covers these barrows. There are some single outlying barrows very close to the set of four, lower and to the west. The four barrows are in the shadow of Winfrith nuclear reactor.

A collection of three round barrows north of the tiny hamlet of Holworth. The biggest is the most easily accessible as it is next to the road. It’s very scruffy, covered in hawthorn and has a tin box on it for some reason. West of it in the middle of a field is a small scrub covered round barrow. South of this is a low round barrow in the corner of the same field.
These appear to be part of a chain, with the Lord’s barrow and the Five Marys to the east and Moigns down/Poxwell to the west. I will revisit these soon as I was pushed for time and the footpath was a waterlogged mess.

This is a single large bowl type round barrow south of Whitfield farm long barrow. It is tree covered and looks like a clump of foliage in the summer.

These barrows are fairly easy to get to from a national trust car park at South Down. Public footpaths lead across Chaldon Down, but it was particularly wet and filthy when I went there. The easiest three barrows to see here consist of three and a single round barrow further to the east.
The three barrows are a medium and a small bowl type and a very small low type. Both have large clefts in their tops from old diggings.
The eastern barrow is on the crest of a hill and has an O.S. concrete trig point on it and overlooks Durdle Door and West Lulworth. A stone is marked on some maps, it is a memorial stone to Llewellyn Powys a local writer.

I had noticed a large round barrow in Came Wood while driving past. This is not visible during the summer months, the foliage is too dense. The barrow turned out to be a large bell type up close, this is very similar to Culliford Tree barrow which is only about 100 yards away to the east. If anything this barrow is in better condition as it lacks the large excavation cleft in its crown.
An added bonus while in the wood was a large ring or disc barrow about 50 yards east of the bell. It is about 15 yards across and has a bank about 3 feet high. It has an outer ditch about 3 feet deep and about 3 yards across. This has no visible burial mound inside the bank and could be a ring barrow or a possible pond type like the one adjacent to Culliford tree.

One of a group of four barrows on the ridge of hills to the east of the south Dorset Ridgeway. It is to the east of Poxwell ring cairn and north of South down barrow cemetery.

This group of four round barrows lie to the south of the Dorset Ridgeway. It is to the north of the coastal village of Ringstead. The barrows are medium sized bowl types in reasonable condition. The best way to approach them is to park in the free national trust car park and walk the 100 yards or so along the road to the barrows.
These barrows are split by the road that leads to a National Trust car park, two are south of the road and two north of it.

Sadly there is not much to see here. There is a barrow but it has been brought so low by ploughing, it had been recently ploughed when I visited it, that it was impossible to photograph. I will see if a growth of crops makes it easier to see in a month or so. It’s a great shame that so much damage has been done as this is a wonderful site with 360 degree views of the local hills and valleys. There is another barrow shown on maps to the south east, this is now completely missing, assuming I was in the right place.

This group of barrows bridges the gap between Gould’s hill and the Came / Bincombe groups. It consists of about 7 – 10 round barrows, some of which are very badly damaged by ploughing. This set completes the south Dorset Ridgeway line of monuments which runs from Martin’s Down to White Horse hill. I have included the two most easily photographable barrows, there are another three that I know of still visible in the landscape.

The O.S. map shows nine barrows on this site, although four are marked with crosses. On the ground I could only see three, and one of these was a very low feature. The largest and most complete was next to the track, just past a barn. It forms part of the field margin and has plough damage where it is in the field. The next most visible is also part of a hedge row to the south, on a ridge below a small wood.
This must once have been a substantial cemetetary but centuries of agriculture have reduced or removed most of the barrows.

Another visit to this substantial long barrow, I had hoped autumn would make it easier to see. The under growth is less now but a fallen tree still obscures much of it. Its a real fight through thick hawthorn and brambles to take some not very clear photos, however the barrow itself is worth a look as it is very big. Shorn of the brush and trees this would be an impressive monument in an area thick with barrows of all kinds and conditions.

These three barrows are in the middle of Knowle hill, there is a fourth further east which I didn’t get to as the weather closed in. The biggest and most southerly is covered in gorse and has traces of a ditch around most of its circumference, the footpath is where it fades out. To the north west of it is a low bowl type also with a ditch and traces of an excavation on its crown.
The western barrow is also a low bowl shape on the ridge of the hill and has a cross dyke running next to it. The cross dyke cuts through the ditch of the barrow so must be later. These boundary ditches cross many hills like this locally, indeed the same hill has another set to the west, dating these ditches is difficult as not many have been properly investigated.