Monument record MDO738 - Bowl barrow on Giant Hill, Cerne Abbas

A Bronze Age bowl barrow. In 1952 this monument was reported as being around 38 feet in diameter with a mound 2¾ feet high, and disturbed. The feature is visible as a cropmark on aerial photographs and as an earthwork on Environment Agency lidar imagery and was digitally plotted during the Dorset Upper Cerne and Piddle Valleys AIM project.

Bowl barrow NE of Celtic fields (ST 60 SE 28) it is about 38 ft in diameter and 2 3/4ft high, and has been disturbed. <1>

ST 67020229. A very mutilated bowl barrow completely dug away on top leaving only a circular rim 0.7m high on the outside, about 0.3m high on the inside and 2.0m wide. No visible ditch. <2>

ST 67030229. The barrow, (published but not described (a)), has now been ploughed out. The site, visible as a soil-mark on OS AP's (b) lies within a cornfield upon the summit of a ridge. Detail deleted on 1:2500 MSD. <3>

The feature is visible as a cropmark on aerial photographs and as an earthwork on Environment Agency lidar imagery. It comprises a 12.5m in diameter mound with the suggestion of a possible ditch around the south and east side. The feature was digitally plotted during the Dorset Upper Cerne and Piddle Valleys AIM project. <5, 6>

Ordnance Survey, 30-MAY-1974, OS 74088 V 225 (Aerial Photograph). SDO20944.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England, 1952, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume I (West) (Monograph). SDO97.

'..To the N.E. of the settlement are remains of a Celtic field-system and about 150 yards N.E. of the main bank is a bowl barrow about 38 ft. in diam. and 2¾ ft. high; it has been disturbed.’

<2> Quinnell, N V, Various, Field Investigators Comments NVQ, 31-MAR-55 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<3> Phillips, A S, Various, Field Investigators Comments ASP, F2 ASP 22-JUL-77 (Unpublished document). SWX3817.

<3.1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, epoch two (Map). SDO11594.

<3.2> OS 74/088/225-26 (Aerial Photograph). SDO17373.

<4> National Record of the Historic Environment, 198967 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

<5> Environment Agency, 16-NOV-2021, LIDAR Environment Agency DTM (Aerial Photograph). SDO18034.

Record last edited

Jan 20 2025 1:53PM