Monument record MDO6007 - Round barrow in angle of B3082 with Shapwick Road, Shapwick

A Bronze Age round barrow, visible on as a ring ditch on aerial photographs. The barrow is visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs and was digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour Catchment AI&M Project. The record for this monument has been enhanced with support from Wessex Water.

A barrow at ST 94830352 that has been heavily ploughed shows as a ring ditch on air photographs. <1>

The site of a ploughed out Bronze Age round barrow is visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs <5> and was digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour Catchment AI&M Project. It appears as a partial ring ditch 55m across which is cut on it's western side by a modern field boundary.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1975, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume V (East), 63 (Monograph). SDO129.

<1.1> St Joseph, J K, NMR ST 9403/1 CUAP AQY 95 (Aerial Photograph). SDO19363.

<2> Grinsell, L V, 1982, Dorset Barrows Supplement, 49 (Monograph). SWX1703.

<3> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1990, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1989, 105-106 (Serial). SDO89.

<4> Papworth, M, 1994, Shapwick Parish, Kingston Lacy Estate, Wessex Region (Unpublished document). SDO14228.

This site is visible as a ring ditch on aerial photograph NMR ST9403/1. The diameter of the ditch is estimated as 60m. Part of this site was excavated in 1988 in advance of the planting of the outer beech avenue (Papworth 1992, 58). Two 6m wide arcs of the ditch were excavated. Both measured 4.2m wide and 1.7m deep. The 50m long section of ring interior, uncovered during the excavation, contained no archaeological features and the bedrock here had been deeply scored by ploughing. Pottery finds from the site were Middle Bronze Age and a fragment of human pelvis indicated that the site had some form of mortuary use. This site is possibly the Badbury Barrow described by Austen (1846, 348). Austen locates the site “five miles from Wimborne in the immediate neighbourhood of Badbury Camp and upon the road leading to Blandford”, it was “in the process of being levelled”. “Unfortunately two thirds of the tumulus were already removed”. The barrow was circular measuring about eighty yards in circumference, the diameter sixty two feet (19m) the height 9 feet; it had however been considerably reduced by the plough.” If a mound existed at 112,059 it appears to have been deliberately levelled as no trace of a mound survives. A mound at this location is not shown on any of the 18th or 19th century maps and this argues for a more ancient levelling of the site. The ditch surrounds an area far larger than the dimensions of the Badbury Barrow recorded by Austen and perhaps 112,056 and 112,057 are better candidates for the site. It is important to try and locate the Badbury Barrow because it contained an unusual quantity of burials. 15 cremations, 3 inhumations, two food vessels, an ornamented handled pot, collared urns and at the centre of the mound, a large block of sandstone decorated with cup marks and carvings of daggers and axes. Some of these finds, including the carved stone, are in Henry Durden’s collection in the British Museum (Piggott 1939, 291 and Longworth 1992, 153)

<5> J R Boyden, 01-APR-1966, JRB 10/41 (Aerial Photograph). SDO18320.

<6> National Record of the Historic Environment, 209689 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Aug 1 2023 4:17PM