Monument record MDO3367 - Round barrow east of Smitten Corner, Winterbourne Steepleton

A Bronze Age barrow, either bowl or bell in type. One of a cluster of three located here. Also visible on aerial photographs as a circular earthwork mound surrounded by an outer ditch.

A Bronze Age barrow, one of a cluster of three located on a knoll above a steep west slope about 500 yards east-north-east of Black Down (MDO3367-69).

Originally described as a bowl barrow with ditch and outer bank, the ditch recorded as measuring 10 feet wide and 2 feet deep, with the outer bank up to 18 feet wide and 2 feet high. The ditch and bank are noted as having been dug away on the western side, as well as disturbed by solution hollows {1-2}.

Ordnance Survey field investigation in 1980 recorded it as a bell barrow of maximum diameter 30 metres and 3.8 metres maximum height. Ploughing had removed traces of the surrounding bank and ditch {3}.

It is also visible on aerial photographs {4} as a circular earthwork mound surrounded by an outer ditch, approximately 28.7 metres in diameter. It was digitally plotted during the South Dorset Ridgeway Mapping Project.

National Record of the Historic Environment, 452371 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 3, 471 (Monograph). SDO150.

<2> Grinsell, L V, 1959, Dorset Barrows, 157, 167 (Monograph). SDO132.

<3> Barton, J G, Various, Field Investigators Comments JGB, F1 JGB 07-APR-80 (Unpublished document). SDO11900.

<4> Royal Air Force, 04-NOV-1946, RAF/CPE/UK/1824 3297-9 (Aerial Photograph). SDO11895.

<5> Papworth, M, 1983, The South Dorset Ridgeway Project: condition and management survey, SDR 218 (Index). SDO12304.

Diameter 30.0m N-S, 28.0m E-W, ht. 3.8m. In the corner of a field. Heather covered. Composed of flint nodules in a black soil. Field lightly ploughed. No trace of the ditch to the SW of mound and in the NE. Severe erosion on the S side of the mound has probably been caused by cattle. 1/4/C

<6> Wessex Archaeology, 2011, South Dorset Ridgeway Barrow Survey 2010 (Unpublished document). SDO12407.

Record last edited

Dec 30 2022 3:52PM