Monument record MDO1502 - Bowl barrow on Martin's Down, Long Bredy

One of seven Bronze Age bowl barrows clustered around a bank barrow and a long barrow. In 1952 this monument was reported as being around 54 feet in diameter with a mound about two feet high, with a ditch around it. The top has been much disturbed.

A bowl barrow on Martin's Down, listed by Grinsell as Long Bredy 13 and by RCHME as Long Bredy 8 (a). Located a short distance southeast of long barrow SY 59 SE 34, Ordnance Survey field investigation in 1955 recorded it as a mound 16 metres in diameter 0.6 metres high, surrounded by a ditch 2.5 metres wide, 0.4 metres deep on the northwest and 0.1 metre deep on the southeast. The top of the barrow "has been completely dug away". Earlier, RCHME had noted that "the top has been much disturbed and now forms a sinking". <1-2>

A Bronze Age bowl barrow on Martin's Down. Located 35m to the south-east of the long barrow described in MDO 1510. The site is visible as earthworks on aerial photographs. <6>

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England, 1952, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume I (West), 41-42 (Monograph). SDO97.

‘(8) BANK BARROW, LONG BARROW and BOWL BARROWS on Long Barrow Hill ¼ to ½ m. N. of the church (575 ft.-612 ft. above O.D.). … The remaining barrows are seven in number, (a), 40 yards S.E. of the long barrow, is 54 ft. in diam. and 2 ft. high; it has remains of a ditch and the top has been much disturbed and now forms a sinking.’

<2> Grinsell, L V, 1959, Dorset Barrows, 117 (Monograph). SDO132.

<3> Papworth, M, 1983, The South Dorset Ridgeway Project: condition and management survey, SDR 13 (Index). SDO12304.

Mound 0.5m high has a hollow and flat top. Flanking ditch just visible. Much damaged by cattle erosion and practise of feeding cattle on top of barrow. Surronding field cultivated but not barrow itself. 1/5/D

<4> McOmish, D and Tuck, C, 2000, Long Bredy Bank Barrow, Long Bredy, Dorset (Unpublished document). SDO16431.

<5> Wessex Archaeology, 2011, South Dorset Ridgeway Barrow Survey 2010 (Unpublished document). SDO12407.

<6> 02-APR-1969, NMR OS/69053 012-3 (Aerial Photograph). SDO11106.

<7> National Record of the Historic Environment, 1315506 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Jul 17 2023 1:25PM