EDO7858 - Chettle House Long Barrow; survey 2021

This gradiometer survey was conducted on a long barrow located 500m south of Chettle village. It is set on a chalk spur, orientated east to west. The mound is relatively well preserved at 85m in length, 19m wide and 2.6m high at its eastern end and 17m wide, 2.45m high at its western end. There are no signs of any side ditches adjacent to the mound. The survey area was divided into 20m grid squares and the gradiometer used was set to take readings every 0.25m along a traverse. A traverse interval of 1m was used. The results from the survey show a long linear anomaly (A) to the south and parallel with the mound. It has been indentified as the southern flanking ditch of the long barrow measuring 98m long and 4m wide. There is no evidence of a flanking ditch in the field north of the barrow. A further linear positive magnetic anomaly (E) is positioned at an oblique angle to the west of the long barrow. The strong reponse from this feature ends close to the original termination area of the mound, prior to erosion from ploughing. A linear anomaly (G) crosses the west of the survey area and has a similar width to linear E, possibly representing another boundary. A large and strong anomaly (H) is located just to the north of this feature and has been identified as a static piece of farm machinery. The possible linear boundary ditch picked up in the survey appears to be aligned on one end of the mound. As at Thickthorn Farm, it is another example of later boundaries being aligned on much earlier extant monuments which provided fixed points in the landscape. The survey has helped to clarify the true extent of features directly associated with the long barrow.