Monument record MDO20911 - Mount Pleasant: bowl barrow

Site of a Bronze Age bowl barrow visible as a ring ditch cropmark on aerial photographs. It is part of a wider linear barrow cemetery located to the south-east of Mount Pleasant.

Ring ditch, approximately 20m in diameter, visible as a cropmark on aerial photographs. It is probably the site of a Bronze Age bowl barrow and appears to be part of a wider linear barrow cemetery aligned north-west - south-east, located approximatly 150m south-east of Mount Pleasant henge (MDO2890). <1>

A ring ditch located east of the Mount Pleasant henge enclosure, one of several recorded for the first time during analysis of aerial photographs in 2004-5. Following the simple nomenclature used in the RCHME inventory and existing monument records, the barrow is designated 'E'.

Located at SY 71298981, it measures circa 15.5 metres in maximum internal diameter. It may be penannular - there is a gap in the cropmark on the eastern side, but the cropmarks lack sufficient clarity to be sure that this is a genuine causeway across the ditch. The ring ditch appears to form a pair with 'F', located just 14 metres to the north. Otherwise, the nearest ring ditch is 'D' (SY 78 NW 95/uid 1494110), which is almost 90 metres away to the southeast. However, cropmark conditions have generally been poor when this area has been photographed, and the presence of additional ring ditches in this area cannot be ruled out from AP evidence alone. <1-4>

<1> Radcliffe, F M, Oblique aerial photographs, FR 198/29 05-AUG-1996 (Aerial Photograph). SDO13178.

<2> Barber, M, 2005, Mount Pleasant 2005 plot (Cartographic materials). SDO10978.

<3> Barber, M, 2008, Mount Pleasant Draft Archive Report 2008 (Unpublished document). SDO10981.

<4> Barber, Martyn, 2014, Mount Pleasant, Dorset. A Survey of the Neolithic 'Henge Enclosure' and Associated Features (Monograph). SDO14409.

<5> National Record of the Historic Environment, 1494128 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Jan 16 2025 6:59PM