Monument record MDO7689 - Bronze Age round barrow, South Heath, East Stoke

One of two bowl barrows situated on the southern edge of a plateau known as South Heath, overlooking the Frome valley to the south. The barrows were recorded by LV Grinsell (1959) and the Royal Commission of the Historical Monuments of England (1970), when each barrow had a mound 9 metres in diameter and between approximately 0.9 metres to 1.2 metres in height. The eastern barrow mound has been reduced, but survives as a stony patch approximately 0.3 metres high. The two mounds are surrounded by infilled quarry ditches, surviving as buried features.

'B' - Site of bowl barrow in an area of clearance and levelling. <2>

'B' - (34) SY 88798723. Bowl(?) barrow about 30 ft diameter and 3 ft high. (Grinsell lists the height as 1 ft). <3> <5>

SY 888873. Two round barrows on South Heath.Scheduled. <6>

These two barrows are in dense wood and completely inaccessible. Revised at 1:2500 on M.S.D. from measurements of (5). <7>

A Bronze Age round barrow, approximately 6.7m in diameter, is visible as an earthwork on aerial photographs of South Heath, Holmebridge <9>. It is one of a group of two round barrows located here (MDO7688-89). This feature was digitally plotted during the Wild Purbeck Mapping Project. It is not clearly visible on the most recent comprehensive aerial images available to the project, this area now being under modern plantation.

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1930 (Map). SWX1540.

(A - SY 887188722; B - SY 88798722) Tumuli (NR)

<2> Quinnell, N V, Various, Field Investigators Comments NVQ, F1 NVQ 29-JUL-52 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<3> Grinsell, L V, 1959, Dorset Barrows, 108 (Monograph). SDO132.

<4> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1963 (Map). SWX1540.

(A - SY 88718722) Tumulus (NR). (B - SY 88798723) Tumulus (NR) (site of) (NAT)

<5> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 1, 452 (Monograph). SDO148.

‘All twenty-one barrows lie on heathland to N. and S. of the Frome, eleven in two groups. That on West Holme Heath is a good example of a linear group related to only a slight ridge. Many have been damaged by military activity. A completely excavated example on Chick’s Hill (22) produced a primary cremation in a globular urn. In another small barrow at Highwood, now unidentifiable but possibly one of (21-5), were three inverted urns with cremations at a depth of 2 ft. (Hutchins I, 413). . . . (34) Bowl (?) (SY 88 NE; 88798723) 92 yds. E. of (33). Diam. about 30 ft., ht. 3 ft.’

<6> 1978, List of ancient monuments in England: Southern England, p63 (Monograph). SWX1558.

<7> Barton, J G, Various, Field Investigators Comments JGB, F2 JGB 18-JUN-81 (Unpublished document). SDO11900.

<8> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, Externally held archive: RCH01/093 RCHME Inventory: Dorset II (South-East) (Unpublished document). SDO17434.

<9> Royal Air Force, 10-FEB-1945, RAF 106G/LA/128 7093-94 (Aerial Photograph). SDO13188.

<10> National Record of the Historic Environment, 455146 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Oct 9 2024 4:24PM