Monument record MDO5436 - Bell barrow, Barrow Firs, Colehill

Bell barrow on the summit of Barrow Firs. The feature is visible as a sub-circular mound within trees on 1950s aerial photographs and was digitally plotted by the Dorset Stour NMP project.

A Bronze Age barrow is visible as a sub-circular mound within trees on 1950s aerial photographs (RAF 1951). The feature is 21m in diameter with sloping scrub-covered sides and a bare summit. It is recorded as one of a group of barrows within Barrow Firs on the OS 1st Edition map; only the one barrow is visible in 1951. The barrow is not visible on current Google Earth imagery due to the level of tree cover. It was digitally plotted by the Dorset Stour NMP project.

A. SU 02320110. Bell barrow, overall diameter 26.0 metres; height 2.0 metres. The ditch, 3.0 metres, wide and 0.5 metres deep, is visible only on the north-west and south sides. The berm is not easily traced because of the dense vegetation. The barrows at SU 02330112 and SU 02350111 have been destroyed by extensions to the school playgrounds. Surveyed at 1:2500 on M.S.D. (Barton 1981)

Historic England, National Record of the Historic Environment, 213196 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, epoch 1, Dorset XXXV.1 Surveyed: 1887, Published: 1888 (Map). SDO10239.

(SU 02330110 & SU 02360111) Tumuli (NR)

Barton, J G, Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Field Investigator's Comments JGB, 12-06-1981 (Unpublished document). SDO11900.

Royal Air Force, 17-APR-51, RAF/58/629 V 5179-80 (Aerial Photograph). SDO15912.

Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1975, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume V (East), 4 (Monograph). SDO129.

'(4) Bell (02320110), on the summit of Barrow Firs, a gravel hill about 240 ft. above O.D., comprises a mound 44 ft. in diam. and 5½ ft. high. A berm 10 ft. wide is surrounded by a ditch 10 ft. wide and 1 ft. deep.'

Record last edited

Mar 12 2026 7:31PM