Monument record MDO2887 - Bowl barrow on Frome Hill, West Stafford

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 Henge. In 1970 this monument was described as ploughed almost flat.

'B'. Bowl barrow. 47 yds NW of 'A'. Ploughed almost flat. <1> <3>

'B' - SY 71468972. Ploughed-down barrow. Diameter approximately 16.0m, height 0.8m maximum. Published surveys (1:2500) revised. <4>

Two bowl barrows ['A' and 'B'] situated on Frome Hill, 520 metres west of Frome Farm. The barrows stand about 18 metres apart, aligned north-west - south-east. The western barrow ['B'] has been reduced in height by ploughing and now measures about 16 metres in diameter and 0.5 metres high. The quarry ditch which surrounds the barrow has become infilled over time but will survive as a buried feature, around 2 metres wide. Scheduled. <6>

Ring ditch, approximately 34m in diameter, visible as a cropmark on aerial photographs <7-8>. 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 300m south-east of Mount Pleasant henge (MDO2890).

Analysis of aerial photographs in 2004-5 identified the cropmark traces of the ring-ditch surrounding barrow 'B', most clearly visible on some APs taken by Francesca Radcliffe in 1992. The ring ditch appears broadly but not perfectly circular, measuring up to 32 metres in diameter, twice the size of the recorded, eroded, barrow mound. Consequently, suggestions that it may have been a bowl barrow cannot be confirmed. Unlike its near-neighbour 'A', barrow 'B' has not been taken out of cultivation. The aerial photographs have demonstrated the existence of several more ring ditches in the area between 'B' and the Mound Pleasant heneg to the northwest (see associated records). The area containing 'A' and 'B' is mapped by the British Geological Survey (sheet 328, 1966) as Wealden Clay, sugegsting that the best surviving barrows are situated on the most difficult soils, at least as far as arable agriculture is concerned. <9-12>

<1> Grinsell, L V, 1959, Dorset Barrows, 140 (Monograph). SDO132.

<2> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1963 (Map). SWX1540.

'B' - SY 72478972. Tumuli (NR)

<3> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 3, 451 (Monograph). SDO150.

'(21) Bowl (?) (SY 78 NW; 71478972) 47 yds. N.W. of (20). Ploughed almost flat. '

<4> Barton, J G, Various, Field Investigators Comments JGB, F1 JGB 21-NOV-1979 (Unpublished document). SDO11900.

<5> Papworth, M, 1983, The South Dorset Ridgeway Project: condition and management survey, SDR 568 (Index). SDO12304.

Ploughed down to 16.0m diameter and 0.8m high. Visible as a low rise in a regularly cultivated field. 7/4/D

<6> English Heritage, Scheduled Monument revision, 10 OCT 2000 (Scheduling record). SDO18414.

<7> 01-SEP-2004, NMR SY 7189/35 (Aerial Photograph). SDO10980.

<8> 15-FEB-2005, NMR SY 7189/45-7 (Aerial Photograph). SDO10979.

<9> Radcliffe, F M, Oblique aerial photographs, FR 109/1-2 08-MAY-1992 (Aerial Photograph). SDO13178.

<10> Barber, M, 2005, Mount Pleasant 2005 plot (Cartographic materials). SDO10978.

<11> Barber, M, 2008, Mount Pleasant Draft Archive Report 2008 (Unpublished document). SDO10981.

<12> Barber, Martyn, 2014, Mount Pleasant, Dorset. A Survey of the Neolithic 'Henge Enclosure' and Associated Features (Monograph). SDO14409.

<13> National Record of the Historic Environment, 1494065 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Jan 16 2025 6:59PM