Monument record MDO1719 - Bowl barrow east of Furway Plantation, Minterne Magna

A bowl barrow. In 1970 this monument was reported as being around 50 feet in diameter with a mound about one foot high but it is now much reduced in height by ploughing and was recorded as a slight mound and a surface spread of flints in 1976. The barrow is reputed to be Sherdenberwe, a mound mentioned in a Saxon charter of AD 941. The feature is visible as a low sub-circular mound on a 1948 aerial photograph and possibly as a more degraded sub-oval mound on current Environment Agency lidar imagery and was digitally plotted during the Dorset Upper Cerne and Piddle Valleys AIM project.

Formerly Buckland Newton now in Mintern Magna, probably the Sherdenberwe of Anglo-Saxon charter. <1>

Bowl barrow, situated at ST 67030430, in an area of 'Celtic' fields. It is very irregular, having been heavily ploughed, and is about 50ft in diameter and 1 ft high. <3>

A round barrow on Little Minterne Hill is 40ft in diameter and 1 1/2ft high. <4>

The OS air photograph depicts this barrow as a 20.0m spread of flints with no soilmark of a ditch. It is currently ploughed, and on the ground appears only as a vague and unsurveyable rise. Feature deleted on 1:2500. <5>

The barrow described by the above authorities is not visible on the 2006 aerial photographs, but in the north-west corner of the adjacent field a slight mound is visible at approximately ST 6705 0438, which could be the remains of a second barrow. <7-8>

Grinsell (1981) records this barrow as 17 paces in diameter and 1 foot high, and notes that manuscript additions to Volume I of the RCHME Inventory (OS Archaeology) describe it an an irregular flinty mound; destroyed before 1976.

The feature is visible as a low sub-circular mound on a 1948 aerial photograph and possibly as a more degraded sub-oval mound on current Environment Agency lidar imagery and was digitally plotted during the Dorset Upper Cerne and Piddle Valleys AIM project. <11, 12>

Grinsell, L V, 1982, Dorset Barrows Supplement, 45 (Monograph). SWX1703.

<1> Grinsell, L V, 1959, Dorset Barrows, 97 (Monograph). SDO132.

<2> Ordnance Survey, c 1962, Ordnance Survey 1:2500 map, epoch five (Map). SDO13903.

(ST 67030430) Tumulus (NR)

<3> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 1, 54 (Monograph). SDO146.

‘(26) BARROW (67030430), formerly in Buckland Newton parish and now in Minterne Magna, lies at over 800 ft. O.D. on Little Minterne Hill, in an area of 'Celtic' fields. It is very irregular, having been heavily ploughed; diam. about 50 ft., ht. 1 ft.’

<4> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, RCHM Ms File (unpublished revision of Dorset 1) (Unpublished document). SDO17382.

<5> Quinnell, N V, Various, Field Investigators Comments NVQ, 19-OCT-76 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<6> English Heritage, Scheduled Monument Notification, 02/01/1997 (Scheduling record). SDO17381.

<7> National Monuments Record, 06-DEC-2006, NMR ST 6704/10 (Aerial Photograph). SDO17379.

<8> National Monuments Record, 06-DEC-2006, NMR 24496/34 (Aerial Photograph). SDO17380.

<9> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, Externally held archive: RCH01/088 RCHME Inventory: Dorset I (West) and Revision (Unpublished document). SDO17367.

<10> National Record of the Historic Environment, 198898 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

<11> Royal Air Force, 22-JAN-1948, RAF/CPE/UK/2431 RP 3358 (Aerial Photograph). SDO20726.

<12> Environment Agency, 16-NOV-2021, LIDAR Environment Agency DTM (Aerial Photograph). SDO18034.

Record last edited

Dec 20 2024 6:50PM