Monument record MDO2550 - Bowl barrow on Grimstone Down, Stratton

One of eight bowl barrows on Grimstone Down. In 1975 this monument was reported as being around 52 feet in diameter with a mound about 5 feet high.

A bowl barrow, about 52 ft diameter and 5-5 1/2 ft high situated in Grimstone Clumps and surrounded by a squarish earthwork - possibly the remains of 18th century tree planting. <1> <3>

A grass and tree-covered bowl barrow, 20.0 m diameter and 1.8 m high with a large hollow centre, surrounded at its base by a rectangular bank - apparently a plantation earthwork. <2>

A grass and tree covered barrow of elongated and rather angular form (see plan), measuring 19.5m. from N to S and 13.5m from E to W. It is 1.7m. high with a level depression of 0.2m in the top.

The mound appears to be on a rectangular platform 0.2m. high, enclosed by a ditch which seems less likely to be a plantation boundary than an original feature. Upcast could hardly account for the material of the platform or berm since the ditch is at best 2.0m. wide and 0.2m. deep. There are faint suggestions of an inner bank only at the eastern extremities.

The E side of the enclosure may be overlaid by an 18th/19th century bank for a beech clump (see GP), but to preserve symmetry probably extended beyond this and has now been destroyed by a track which has at times abutted the plantation.

Only excavation can attempt a true classification (eg IA or BA) but elongated mounds are not rare, c.f. SY 69 NW 43F and squarish banks/ditches formerly surrounded barrows at Upper Loscombe, SY 612885, in Winterbourne Steepleton. Surveyed at SY 64519508 at 1:2500 on MSD and at 1:500. <5>

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England, 1952, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume I (West), 229 (Monograph). SDO97.

‘(15) BOWL BARROWS, on Grimstone Down, are eight in number. … (h), in the southern of the Grimstone Clumps, is about 52 ft. in diam. and 5 ft. high.‘

<2> Swatridge, G C, Various, Field Investigators Comments GCS, F1 GCS 27-JAN-55 (Unpublished document). SWX1169.

<3> Grinsell, L V, 1959, Dorset Barrows, 131 (Monograph). SDO132.

<4> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey 1:10,000 scale map, 1974 (Map). SDO17396.

(SY 64539508) Tumulus (NR)

<5> Quinnell, N V, Various, Field Investigators Comments NVQ, F2 NVQ 20-MAR-81 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<6> National Record of the Historic Environment, 453212 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Oct 22 2024 3:32PM