Monument record MDO5080 - Cremation cemetery on Launceston Down, Tarrant Launceston

A group of at least five small barrows on the northern part of Launceston Down was examined by J H Austen in 1864. A cluster of urns containing cremations was found in 1938 and interpreted as part of a cremation cemetery around the barrows.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1972, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume IV (North), 107 (Monograph). SDO99.

'The Launceston Down North Group comprised a cluster of at least five small barrows located around 95451145, 220 ft. above O.D. on the southward-facing slope of a dry combe falling E. to the Crichel brook; all have now been levelled by cultivation, but each barrow was examined by J. H. Austen in 1864. ... In 1938 four more urns, not covered by barrows but apparently part of an urnfield, were found in the vicinity of the barrow group; three of them contained cremations, one with a fragment of a bronze spearhead (Arch., XC (1944), 50, 60, 61).'

Record last edited

Sep 30 2020 10:52AM