Monument record MDO3094 - Maiden Castle, Winteborne Monkton, long barrow

A well preserved and unmistakable long barrow which, though short, does not by its form fall into the Wessex short-long barrow type. Visible as a cropmark on aerial photographs. The site was digitally plotted during the South Dorset Ridgeway Mapping Project.

SY 66518880 A possible ploughed out long barrow, discovered by J Rigg of the Archaeology Division of the Ordnance Survey. <1>

SY66518880. A well preserved and unmistakable long barrow which, though short, does not by its form fall into the Wessex short-long barrow type. Orientated NNW-SSE, it is 36.0 metres long and 18.0 metres wide with a ditch 5.0 metres wide, and 0.4 metres deep on the north or downhill side. Solifluction has eradicated the southern ditch. The highest and broadest end is to the east where taken to the north it is 1.7 metres high and to the south it is 0.6 metres high. The Western end flows gently into the surrounding contours. The barrow is situated on land falling to the north-east and is under the plough. It shows a heavy chalk content throughout the mound and at the eastern end there is a sizeable heap of large flint nodules as though a cairn had been disturbed. Among the flints are small pieces of "alien" sandstone conglomerate and fragments of calcined bones. See air photographs CPE/UK2472/3076 and CPE/UK2431/3258-9. <2>

Lies 30 yds due N of the outer bank of the W entrance of Maiden Castle, about 350ft above O.D. on the E facing slope of a chalk ridge. On a bearing of 142o, it is about 90 ft. long, at most about 50ft wide, about 5ft high from below but almost flat from above with rounded ends returning uphill. At the S end the plough had exposed a thick spread of heavy flints and there was the remnant of a shallow pit or ditch, over 10 ft across. Oblique air photographs taken in the 1930's by Major G W G Allen
show a narrow mound with unusually tapered ends, possibly sharpened by tracks or ploughing. There has been intensive ploughing since then. <3>

Long Barrow (?) (SY 66548877)<5>

Reduced by ploughing to an elongated mound. 27.0m by 9.0m with a maximum height of 0.5m on the downhill side; no visible ditch. Re-surveyed at 1:2500 on MSD. <6>

The long barrow lies 50m to the north of the western entrance of Maiden Castle at SY 6651 8879 at the head of a dry valley. It comprises a low, ploughed over mound, orientated N-S, 24m long, 20m wide and 0.3m high. Aerial photographs taken in 1937 when Mortimer Wheeler was excavating Maiden Castle show the monument as a substantial mound with flanking ditches (Ashmolean Museum collection: ACA 7312 fr 776; ACA 7090 fr 766; ACA 7090 fr 767). <9>

The site was surveyed using differential GPS at a scale of 1: 200 as part of a survey of the long barrows on the South Dorset Ridgeway carried out by English Heritage and the Ridgeway Survey Group. <10>

The geophysical surveys carried out by the EH Geophysics Team and the Ridgeway Survey Group of this long barrow clearly show the buried ditches. Both magnetometry and resistivity surveys showed the ditch on the western and eastern sides of the barrow. The ditch was also present across the north end of the mound but did not appear to be continuous. Areas of high resistance at the south end of the mound may be interpreted as a collapsed and buried chamber. <11>

A long barrow extant as an earthwork and located immediately northwest of Maiden Castle (SY 68 NE 7 and associated records), on the northeast-facing slope of a ridge, overlooking the Frome valley. The barrow is listed by Grinsell as Winterborne Monkton 1 and by RCHME as Winterborne Monkton 3. There is no record of any excavation having been undertaken. Orientated north northwest - south southeast, in 1980 the Ordnance Survey recorded it as a mound 27 metres by 9 metres and surviving to a maximum height of 0.5 metres on the downhill side, with no visible traces of ditches. In 1955, an Ordnance Survey field investigator had described the mound then as being 36 metres long and 18 metres wide, with a ditch 5 metres wide and 0.4 metres deep on the north side. The ditch on the south side was not visible. The higher, broader end was to the southeast where it measured up to 1.7 metres high. Plough damage was already well-advanced, and the mound appeared to have a "heavy chalk content throughout…and at the eastern end there is a sizeable heap of large flint nodules as though a cairn had been disturbed. Among the flints are small pieces of "alien" sandstone conglomerate and fragments of calcined bone". Air photographs taken in the 1930s appear to show a narrow mound with unusually tapered ends, though this may have been a product of ploughing and other agricultural activity <12>. The site was digitally plotted during the South Dorset Ridgeway Mapping Project.

<1> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1956, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1955, 150 (Serial). SDO55.

‘A possible long-barrow near Maiden Castle. Mr. J. Rigg, of the Archaeology Division of the Ordnance Survey, reports a possible ploughed-out long barrow at SY 66518880 (Winterborne Monkton) in the corner of a field north of the west entrance of Maiden Castle, on ground sloping down gently to the east. The field was sown when I visited the site, but I estimated the length of the slight mound as about 90 feet, and its orientation as N.N.W.-S.S.E. There is perhaps a trace of a ditch remaining on the lower side. Excavation, or an aerial photograph under suitable conditions of crop, is needed to confirm.’

<2> Quinnell, N V, Various, Field Investigators Comments NVQ, F1 JR 02-FEB-1955 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<3> Grinsell, L V, 1959, Dorset Barrows, 82 (Monograph). SDO132.

<4> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1963 (Map). SWX1540.

(SY 66518879) Long Barrow (NR)

<5> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 2, 432 (Monograph). SDO136.

’(93) LONG BARROW (?) (SY 68 NE; 66548877; Fig. p. 494), lies 30 yds. due N. of the outer bank of the W. entrance of Maiden Castle, about 350 ft. above O.D. on the E.-facing slope of a chalk ridge. On a bearing of 142°, it is about 90 ft. long, at most about 50 ft. wide, about 5 ft. high from below but almost flat from above with rounded ends returning uphill. At the S. end the plough had exposed a thick spread of heavy flints and there was the remnant of a shallow pit or ditch, over 10 ft. across. Oblique air photographs taken in the 1930s by Major G. W. G. Allen show a narrow mound with unusually tapered ends, possibly sharpened by tracks or ploughing. There has been intensive ploughing since then.’

<6> Barton, J G, Various, Field Investigators Comments JGB, F2 JGB O2-SEP-1980 (Unpublished document). SDO11900.

<7> Papworth, M, 1983, The South Dorset Ridgeway Project: condition and management survey, SDR 424 (Index). SDO12304.

A possible ploughed out long barrow. Reduced to an elongated mound 27.0m by 9.0m with a max. ht. of 0.5m on the downhill side. There is no visible ditch to this barrow which is situated in a field of ley pasture. 7/5/D

<8> Wessex Archaeology, 2011, South Dorset Ridgeway Barrow Survey 2010 (Unpublished document). SDO12407.

<9> Riley, H, Field Investigators Comments: Hazel Riley, February 2007 (Unpublished document). SDO17469.

<10> Riley, H, 2008, Long Barrows on the South Dorset Ridgeway. A Survey by English Heritage and the Ridgeway Survey Group (Unpublished document). SDO15192.

<11> Payne, A, 2008, Two Long Barrows at Maiden Castle, Winterbourne Monkton and Sheep Down, Winterbourne Steepleton, Dorset. Report on Geophysical Surveys, July 2007 (Unpublished document). SDO16489.

<12> National Monuments Record, 26-MAR-1968, NMR SY6689/2 (Aerial Photograph). SDO11806.

<13> Historic England, Historic England Archive, AF00268 (Index). SDO14738.

Long Barrows on the South Dorset Ridgeway, Dorset

<14> National Record of the Historic Environment, 451919 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Oct 25 2024 10:47AM