Monument record MDO6461 - Knowlton Barrow Group, Woodlands

Barrow. A possible Bronze Age barrow at Knowlton is visible as a cropmark on 1950s aerial photographs. The barrow is probably Bronze Age in origin and forms part of the Knowlton Barrow Group. The feature was digitally plotted by the Dorset Stour NMP project.

'Barrow; diam. 40 ft'. (1)

SU 0293 1060. At least twenty very small round barrows are visible as cropmarks within the northern part of the Knowlton Circles Barrow Group, and have been mapped from aerial photographs by EH's Knowlton Circles Project. The diameters of the small barrows range between 3.9m and 14.8m. They are arranged in a close group from SU 0294 1049 - SU 0277 1062 - SU 0292 1068 - SU 0303 1066, and appear to have been inserted into spaces between larger Bronze Age barrows, and there are undoubtedly more very small round barrows within this cemetery. <2-5>

The date of these barrows is uncertain. Very small round barrows have been recorded elsewhere in England in Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman and Saxon contexts. Support for a post-Bronze Age date at Knowlton may perhaps be derived from the presence in the vicinity of possible Iron Age square barrows: in one of the square barrow cemeteries at Garton Slack, on the Yorkshire Wolds, very small round barrows represented a very late phase of the Iron Age burial rite. <6>

A Bronze Age barrow at Knowlton is visible as a cropmark on 1950s aerial photographs <7>. The barrow measures approximately 12m in diameter and forms part of the Knowlton Barrow Group. The barrow still visible as a cropmark in 2005 <8>. The feature was digitally plotted by the Dorset Stour NMP project. It is unclear whether this is the barrow referred to here or in MDO 6460.

National Record of the Historic Environment, 1409863 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1975, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume V (East), 116 (Monograph). SDO129.

<2> Cambridge University Collection of Aerial Photography, 18-JUN-1948, CUCAP AQ 19-20 (Aerial Photograph). SDO20368.

<3> National Monuments Record, 22-APR-1954, NMR SU 0210/35 (CUCAP NN 6) (Aerial Photograph). SDO18738.

<4> John Boyden, 02-JUL-1976, JRB 3097/006 (SU0210/39) (Aerial Photograph). SDO15710.

<5> National Monuments Record, 13-JUL-1995, NMR SU 0310/10 (NMR 15314/21) (Aerial Photograph). SDO18729.

<6> Stoertz, Cathy, 2005, Knowlton Circles Project, Dorset: report on the aerial photographic transcription and analysis (Monograph). SDO19585.

<7> Cambridge University Collection of Aerial Photography, 22-APR-54, CAP 8152/005 (SU0210/034) (Aerial Photograph). SDO15754.

<8> Dorset County Council, 2005, Digital vertical aerial photographs (Aerial Photograph). SDO12570.

Record last edited

Dec 15 2023 1:54PM