Monument record MDO2950 - Bowl barrow, one of the Culliford Tree Group, Whitcombe

A Bronze Age bowl barrow, part of the Culliford Tree barrow group (named after this barrow), a linear barrow group ranged along part of the Dorset Ridgeway. It was recorded by the Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division in 1979 as a mound 36 metres in diameter and 4.8 metres high. The mound is surrounded by a tree-ring and bank, first planted in 1740. The mound was excavated in 1858, when four separate skeletons were found at a shallow depth near the top of the mound. These were all extended inhumations and one, a female, was accompanied by amber beads possibly representing a necklace. Two of the beads had "gold plates on their bases". Several feet lower down in the mound was an Early Bronze Age collared urn containing ashes, calcined human bones, and a small pottery accessory vessel. The excavation appears to have continued no further. Piggott (1938) included the barrow in his list of Early Bronze Age "Wessex graves", noting the presence of amber and gold in particular. However, others have suggested that the extended inhumations, and thus the amber and gold, are of much later date, probably Anglo-Saxon. Thus it is of interest that the barrow, presumably in the early medieval period, came to mark the Hundred meeting place and, indeed, gave its name to the Hundred. Visible on aerial photographs as a cropmark ring ditch with internal mound. Digitally plotted as part of the South Dorset Ridgeway Mapping Project.

A Bronze Age bowl barrow, part of the Culliford Tree barrow group (named after this barrow), a linear barrow group ranged along part of the Dorset Ridgeway. Listed by RCHME as Whitcombe 9 and by Grinsell as Whitcombe 1, it was recorded by the Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division in 1979 as a mound 36 metres in diameter and 4.8 metres high. The mound is surrounded by a tree-ring and bank, first planted in 1740. The mound was excavated in the autumn of 1858 by Captain Damer MP of Came House, and the trench itself is still visible on top of the mound. The only account of the excavation was published a few years later by Warne, who noted "regrets that amongst the persons present there was no one sufficiently interested to note down the facts attendant on the examination, which was but partially effected". Warne's account was based on information supplied by one Rev W Barnes. It is not clear if Barnes was actually present at the excavation, but the account was checked by Damer himself.

A Collared Urn and accessory vessel provenanced to the Culliford Tree barrow, and presumably the "large urn" and small "vessel of clay" referred to by Warne, are both in Dorset County Museum, Dorchester, where they form part of the Cunnington Collection, though it is not clear how they passed from Damer to the Cunningtons. Stuart Piggott (1938) included the barrow in his list of Early Bronze Age "Wessex graves", noting the presence of amber and gold in particular. However, as Warne noted, the extended inhumations, one of which was accompanied by the amber and gold, appear to have been late insertions into the mound. Extended inhumations are by no means unknown from the Early Bronze Age, but this burial rite, along with the form of the amber beads (spherical) and the shallow depth at which the skeletons were encountered suggests that Warne was right. An Anglo-Saxon date is a distinct possibility, which is of interest given the fact that the barrow mound, presumably at some point in the Early Medieval period, came to mark the meeting place of the local Hundred to which it also gave its name. <1-10>

Secondary cremation with ashes in collared urn. Secondary (Saxon?) four extended inhumations one female with necklace of amber beads, two had gold casings. <5>

Visible on aerial photographs <11> as a cropmark ring ditch with internal mound. Digitally plotted as part of the South Dorset Ridgeway Mapping Project.

<1> Warne, C, 1866, The Celtic Tumuli of Dorset (1866), 5, 18-19 (Monograph). SWX8166.

Communications from Personal Friends, tumulus 22. 'The barrow was one of large size, and bowl shape, and was opened on its south west side. The work had not been long continued before, at a shallow depth, a skeleton was found extended, with its face towards the East. The excavations were steadily carried on, when the remains of three other individuals were disturbed, each lying in the same position as the first, and the whole placed vertically, or overlying each one the other, with about eighteen inches of earth intervening between them respectively.

At the neck of one of the bodies, that of a female, were the beads of a necklace, apparently amber, and of a spherical form, with the exception of two, which were cylindrical in shape, with gold plates on their bases. The cutting by this time had been carried to a depth of from six to seven feet, when a large urn was discovered; but unfortunately too much broken to admit of preservation. It contained ashes and calcined human bones, amidst which was found a vessel of clay, which may well rank amongst the smallest of its kind that has been met with in the tumuli of Dorset, as it measures only two inches in height, with a diameter of one inch and a half at its largest part; it is of rude construction, quite plain, and extremely fragile; but has been preserved entire.

"At this stage of the examination the work was brought to a close, and thus the object left incomplete. As far as the researches extended, it seems quite clear that the interments were of an age long posterior to the erection of the mound, or the deposit of the urn; whilst the original deposit still remains undisturbed on the floor of the barrow, or in a cist cut beneath it. The amber beads with the gold plating indicate a period of time far later than that of the tumuli of the district, which are in general of the most remote age.'

<2> Acland, J E, 1908, Catalogue of Sepulchral Pottery in the Dorset County Museum (Article in serial). SDO9782.

<3> Abercromby, J, 1912, A Study of the Bronze Age Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland, 28, 118 (Monograph). SDO10121.

<4> Piggott, S, 1938, 'The Early Bronze Age in Wessex'; Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society (Article in serial). SDO10120.

<5> Grinsell, L V, 1959, Dorset Barrows (Monograph). SDO132.

<6> Calkin, J B, 1967, 'Some Records of Barrow Excavations Re-Examined'; Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society fo4 1966 (Article in serial). SDO17238.

<7> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 3, 459 (Monograph). SDO150.

<8> Barton, J G, Various, Field Investigators Comments JGB, F1 JGB 16-NOV-1979 (Unpublished document). SDO11900.

<9> Papworth, M, 1983, The South Dorset Ridgeway Project: condition and management survey, SDR 588 (Index). SDO12304.

36.0m diameter, ht. 4.8m. Unploughed and covered in mature beech trees. Large excavation trench to S. Woodland on barrow unmanaged. Surrounded by ley pasture. 1/2/C

<10> Longworth, I H, 1984, Collared Urns of the Bronze Age in Great Britain and Ireland, 191-2 (Monograph). SWX9167.

<11> Royal Air Force, 04-NOV-1946, RAF/CPE/UK/1824 3284-6 (Aerial Photograph). SDO10765.

<12> Wessex Archaeology, 2011, South Dorset Ridgeway Barrow Survey 2010 (Unpublished document). SDO12407.

<13> National Record of the Historic Environment, 1338160 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Jun 16 2023 4:10PM