Monument record MDO6425 - Bowl barrow, one of the Knowlton Circles Barrow Group, Woodlands

A Bronze Age bowl barrow. In 1975 this monument was reported as being around 90 feet in diameter with a mound about 2 feet high. Aerial photographs taken in 2005 show a ring ditch around 40 metres in diameter, suggesting that the monument has been much reduced by ploughing.

The round barrows described by authority <2> are visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs, and have been mapped by English Heritage's Knowlton Circles Project. Aerial photographic evidence allowed the dimensions and locations of most of the barrows to be recorded more accurately than in authority 2, and provided additional information for some of the barrows: (29) SU 0202 0948 appears to show traces of a central feature, either mound material or a possible scoop or hollow, surrounded by a circular ditch. The ditch is 38m in diameter; the central feature is 17.4 m in diameter.

Aerial photographs taken in 2005 show a ring ditch around 40 metres in diameter, suggesting that the monument has been much reduced by ploughing <4>. The site of plough levelled Bronze Age round barrow is visible as a cropmarks on aerial photographs <5>. It lies to the SW of the southern henge of Knowlton Circles and is one of the extensive Knowlton Circles Barrow Group. The ring ditch is 38m across; it was digitally plotted during the Dorset Stour NMP.

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1968 (Map). SWX1540.

(Centred SU 02040952) Tumuli (NR) (SU 02100969) Tumulus (NR) (SU 02320966) Tumulus (NR)

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1975, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume V (East), 116 (Monograph). SDO129.

‘Knowlton Circles Group (29–65) consists of thirty-five barrows, among them Great Barrow, the largest burial mound in Dorset. Most of them have been flattened and the remainder damaged by ploughing, but they appear on air photographs (C.U.A.P., AQ 17, 20, 23; AQY 101, AQZ 2; N.M.R., SU 0209/4, SU 0309/1, ST 9906/2). It is highly likely that there are other barrows in the area as yet undiscovered.
Barrows (29–38) lie S. and S.W. of the South Circle on both sides of the Cranborne-Wimborne road. One of them, when partly levelled, appears to have yielded four skeletons (G. A. Cooke, Topographical Description of Dorset (c. 1818), 151).
(29) Bowl (02020948); diam. 90 ft., ht. 2 ft.’

<3> Miller, Andrew, 1993, RCHME: AP Primary Recording Project (Unpublished document). SWX1708.

<3.1> 06-SEP-1989, NMR SU 0209/9, 11-12 (NMR 4491/33, 35-6) (Aerial Photograph). SDO20326.

<3.2> 06-SEP-1989, NMR SU 0209/13-15 (NMR 4492/02-4) (Aerial Photograph). SDO20274.

<3.3> 06-SEP-1989, NMR SU 0209/18-29 (NMR 4554/37-39, 42-44, 46-50) (Aerial Photograph). SDO20327.

<3.4> 06-SEP-1989, NMR SU 0109/2-3 (NMR 4554/40-41) (Aerial Photograph). SDO20328.

<3.5> Boyden, J R, 02-JUL-1976, NMR SU 0209/8/3 (JRB 3097/3) (Aerial Photograph). SDO19696.

<4> Dorset County Council, 2005, Digital vertical aerial photographs (Aerial Photograph). SDO12570.

<5> John Boyden, 02-JUL-1976, JRB 3097/3 (NMR 0209/8) (Aerial Photograph). SDO15724.

<6> National Record of the Historic Environment, 213018 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Dec 5 2023 12:11PM