Monument record MDO6018 - Bowl barrow, one of the Badbury Rings Group, Shapwick

A Bronze Age bowl barrow, one of a group of several near Badbury Rings. In 1975 the RCHME recorded this monument as being around 55 feet in diameter with a mound about 2½ feet high with traces of a ditch around it. The barrow is visible as earthworks on aerial photographs and lidar imagery and was digitially plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AI&M. The record for this monument has been enhanced with support from Wessex Water.

(ST 96190322). A mutilated mound thought to be of the same age and character as the Roman barrow (ST 90 SE 36). <2>

A grass covered mound 8.5m diameter and 0.7m high with surrounding ditch circa 0.7m wide and 0.2m deep, but indistinct on the N quadrant. Very low but by location possibly Roman. <3>

Listed as a bowl barrow, 55ft diameter and 2 1/2ft high with traces of a ditch, by Grinsell and RCHM. <4-5>

A Bronze Age bowl barrow, one of a group of several near Badbury Rings. In 1975 the RCHME recorded this monument as being around 55 feet in diameter with a mound about 2½ feet high with traces of a ditch around it. The barrow is visible as earthworks on aerial photographs and lidar imagery <7-8> and was digitially plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AI&M. It comprises an internal mound 11m across with external ring ditch.

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

(ST 96190322) Tumulus (NR)

<2> Crawford, O G S and Keiller, A, 1928, Wessex from the Air, 58-9 (Monograph). SDO12591.

<3> Quinnell, N V, Various, Field Investigators Comments NVQ, F1 NVQ 26-MAR-54 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<4> Grinsell, L V, 1959, Dorset Barrows, 130 (Monograph). SDO132.

<5> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1975, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume V (East), 64 (Monograph). SDO129.

‘At least twenty-six barrows are known, but many have been flattened by ploughing and now appear only as soil-marks or crop-marks on air photographs. … Badbury Rings Group comprises nine barrows (47–55), immediately W. and S.W. of Badbury Rings (Plate 62); they lie on undulating downland between 250 ft. and 275 ft. above O.D. It was once thought that (45–47) were Roman (Wessex from the Air, 58–61, Pl. IV), but this has now been disproved (Ant. J., XLV (1965), 41–7). … (53) Bowl (96200322), 160 yds. N.E. of (52); diam. 55 ft., ht. 2½ ft., with traces of a ditch.’

<6> Papworth, M, 1994, Shapwick Parish, Kingston Lacy Estate, Wessex Region, 55 (Unpublished document). SDO14228.

Bowl Barrow visible as a low rise 13.5m dia. and 0.8m high. The quarry ditch for the burial mound measures 18m dia., 2.5m wide, and 0.2m deep. The ditch is surrounded by wooden posts to prevent visitor erosion. The area is used as a car park only during point to point meetings. The mound appears to have been dug into on the south-west side perhaps the result of antiquarean excavation. A detailed contour survey was carried out across the mound in March 1990. Site lies on a south west slope One of a group of twelve barrows.

<7> Alexander Kieller Collection, 14-JUL-1924, ALK 7415/257 (Aerial Photograph). SDO18098.

<8> Environment Agency, 16-NOV-2021, LIDAR Environment Agency DTM (Aerial Photograph). SDO18034.

<9> National Record of the Historic Environment, 209537 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Feb 8 2023 12:21PM