Monument record MDO6346 - Bowl barrow, one of the Oakley Down Group, Wimborne St Giles

A round barrow of a type known as a bowl barrow. This monument was reported in 1975 as being approximately seventeen metres in diameter, and just under two metres high.The mound was dug into by the antiquarian Richard Colt Hoare; he found a primary cremation burial with traces of cloth and the remains of an urn, a bronze dagger, a bone pin and a bone pendant.

A bowl barrow, part of the Oakley Down barrow group (SU 01 NW 19). It was described by RCHME as a mound 54 feet in diameter and 6 feet high. It was excavated in the early 19th century by Cunnington and Hoare (their barrow 20), who reported that it "produced a sepulchral urn which was broken. On removing the fragments, we discovered an interment of burned bones, over which was a considerable quantity of decayed linen cloth, the filaments of which, at first, appeared like hair. This deposit was accompanied by a round pin and an arrowhead of bone, a very perfect spear-head [dagger] of brass [bronze], with a great part of the wooden handle adhering to it...". The dagger (minus bone [sic] handle) and the bone pin are in Devizes Museum, Wiltshire. The remaining items are lost. In 1968, a sherd from a collared urn was found on one side of the mound in a sheep or rabbit scrape. In 1977, following further erosion by a sheep track on the same side of the mound, an urn was exposed. A small excavation was undertaken to recover the urn (tentatively identified as a biconical urn), which appeared to have been placed in an upright position, surrounded by rough chalk rubble. Several large flint nodules exposed in the excavation proved to represent a small cairn of nodules over another urn, this one being left in situ. An attempt was made to restore the barrow mound. The excavated urn is in Dorset County Museum, Dorchester.

Primary cremation with broken urn and decayed linen cloth, grooved bronze dagger with part of wooden handle and a ‘round pin and an arrowhead of bone’. A sherd of collared urn found on the west side in 1968, and two urns, one upright, also on the west side in 1977. <6>

<1> Prehistoric Society, 1938, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 4, 52-106, Piggott, S. The Early Bronze Age in Wessex [Wessex grave group 17] (Serial). SDO18631.

<2> Grinsell, L V, 1959, Dorset Barrows, 145 (Monograph). SDO132.

<3> Annable, F K and Simpson, D D A, 1964, A guide catalogue of the Neolithic and Bronze Age collections in Devizes museum, 55, 109, Nos. 349-50 (Unpublished document). SDO18620.

<4> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1975, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume V (East), 102 (Monograph). SDO129.

'(97) Bowl (01701704), (Hoare No. 20) covered a primary cremation with remains of an urn, 'linen' cloth, a grooved bronze dagger, a bone pin and a bone pendant (Devizes Museum Catalogue, 1964, Nos. 349-50; P.P.S. (1938), 102-3). Diam. 54 ft., ht. 6 ft.'

<5> Colt Hoare, Sir Richard, 1975, The ancient history of Wiltshire, 242 (Monograph). SDO18077.

<6> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1980, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1977, 125-126 (Serial). SDO77.

<7> Grinsell, L V, 1982, Dorset Barrows Supplement, 54 (Monograph). SWX1703.

<8> National Record of the Historic Environment, 1312207 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Mar 7 2024 7:16PM