Monument record MDO4532 - Bowl barrow, Okeford Fitzpaine

A bowl barrow with no ditch situated on the chalk escarpment. In 1955 this monument was reported as being around 10 metres in diameter with a mound about 0.7m high. The feature is visible as a slightly oval 7.5m by 5.4m banked mound on 1940s aerial photographs and was digitally plotted using this source during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project.

A grass covered ditchless bowl barrow, diameter 10.0m. height 0.7m. It is slightly higher measured from the south-east where the trackway has cut around the barrow. <3>

Bowl barrow is high situated on Bell Hill on the summit of a chalk escarpment (ST 79940825). <4>

The feature is visible as a slightly oval 7.5m by 5.4m banked mound on 1940s aerial photographs (RAF 1947). The slightly ovoid form might be due to truncation on its south side by a trackway. The feature is visible on current lidar imagery (EA 2018) but not sufficiently defined enough to plot using this source. It was digitally plotted during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project.

Royal Air Force, 17-JAN-1947, RAF/CPE/UK/1934 RS 4170 (Aerial Photograph). SDO21602.

Environment Agency, xx-xxx-2018, Environment Agency National Lidar Programme DTM 1M (Aerial Photograph). SDO21483.

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1902 (Map). SWX1540.

(ST 79930823) Tumulus (NR)

<2> Rigg, J, Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Field Investigator's Comments JR, F1 JR 16-JUN-55 (Unpublished document). SWX1255.

A bowl barrow. 12 paces diameter wide by 2½ feet high.

<2.1> Grinsell, L V, 1935-54, Dorset Barrows 1935-54 Manuscript (Unpublished document). SWX1556.

<3> Quinnell, N V, Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Field Investigator's Comments NVQ, F2 NVQ 16-JUL-55 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<4> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 2, 207 (Monograph). SDO136.

‘(43) Bowl (79940825) on Bell Hill, on the summit of the chalk escarpment at over 800 ft. above O.D. Diam. 36 ft., ht. 2½ ft.’

<5> Department of the Environment, DOE (IAM) Ancient Monuments Record Form, DOE (IAM) AMs Eng 1977 66 (Index). SDO17347.

<6> Historic England, National Record of the Historic Environment, 201725 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Feb 6 2026 10:46AM