Monument record MDO3666 - Bowl barrow north west of Charisworth, Charlton Marshall

A bowl barrow. In 1970 this monument was reported as being around 50 feet in diameter with a mound about one foot high. This barrow may be one of those investigated by antiquarian H White in 1811. The site of the Bronze Age round barrow mound is visible as a low earthwork on lidar imagery; it is surrounded by a ring ditch visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs. They were digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AIM.

Two grass covered bowl barrows with no visible surrounding ditches A is 15.0m diameter and 0.4m high, crossed by a modern fence, and B is 13.0m diameter and 0.4m high. <2>

A (14) Bowl barrow (ST 85960185), NW of Charisworth diameter 50ft, height 1 foot. <3>

B (15) Bowl barrow (ST 862020180), 80 yds SE of (A) diameter 48ft, height 1 foot. <4>

The site of the Bronze Age barrow mound, 14m across, is visible as a low earthwork on lidar imagery <7> ; it is surrounded by a ring ditch visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs <8>. The features were digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AIM.

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1902 (Map). SWX1540.

((A ST 85960184; B ST 86020181) Tumuli

<2> Quinnell, N V, Various, Field Investigators Comments NVQ, F1 NVQ 19-NOV-54 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<3> Grinsell, L V, 1959, Dorset Barrows, 99 (Monograph). SDO132.

<4> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 1, 59 (Monograph). SDO146.

‘Nine barrows in the S.W. of the parish form part of a barrow scatter that is continued in the adjacent parishes of Winterborne Whitechurch and Winterborne Kingston; they lie between 250 ft. and 400 ft. O.D., on the E-facing slopes of the Chalk downland between the valleys of the Stour and the Winterborne; all have been heavily ploughed. Three barrows on Charlton Down were opened by H. White in 1811 (Warne C.T.D., Pt. 3, Nos. 48, 49 and 50; Hutchins III, 525); one contained, near the surface, an inhumation, probably intrusive, with the feet to the E.; the second contained a cremation in an urn; the third contained a primary cremation in a globular urn set in a circular cist 2 ft. deep and 1½ ft. wide, cut into the chalk beneath (Barrow Diggers, 91-2 and Pl. 8; Arch. J. CXIX (1962), 57). A skull (Barrow Diggers, 81-2 and Pl.6) may be that of the skeleton found by White, or from a further barrow as suggested by Hutchins. The nine barrows are as follows – … (14) Bowl (85960185), N.W. of Charisworth; diam. 50 ft., ht. 1 ft.’

<6> National Record of the Historic Environment, 205649 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

<7> Environment Agency, 16-NOV-2021, LIDAR Environment Agency DTM (Aerial Photograph). SDO18034.

<8> National Monuments Record, 04-SEP-1995, NMR 15399/24 (Aerial Photograph). SDO19460.

Record last edited

Jul 22 2024 12:22PM