Monument record MDO47597 - Round barrow on Hambledon Hill, Child Okeford

A poorly preserved possible Bronze Age round barrow on Hambledon Hill. The earthworks on Hambledon Hill were surveyed by RCHME in 1996. The mound is located on the domed central summit of Hambledon Hill, within and close to the centre of the main Neolithic causewayed enclosure, immediately to the south of the surviving Ordnance Survey triangulation pillar. It survives only as a scarp extending along the fenceline for a distance of 12 metres, with slight indications that this is a truncated remnant of a larger mound which has been destroyed by the footpath. The parish boundary runs along the fenceline at this point. Elsewhere on Hambledon Hill, the parish boundary follows the prehistoric earthworks, and may therefore have been originally aligned on the barrow.

(ST 8483 1224) Between late May and late August 1996 the Cambridge and Exeter offices of RCHME carried out an earthwork survey and aerial photographic interpretation of the complex of monuments on Hambledon Hill as part of the project to record Industry and Enclosure in the Neolithic period.

A few metres to the S of the OS Trig. point near the centre of the Neolithic enclosure, a scarp along the W side of the fenceline may indicate a truncated mound. Given that the fenceline follows the boundary between the parishes of Child Okeford and Iwerne Courtney or Shroton this may have been a barrow. Dimensions are now impossible to judge from the surface evidence.

For further details, see RCHME Level 3 report and plan at 1:1000 scale, held in archive. <1>

<1> RCHME: Industry and Enclosure in the Neolithic (Monograph). SWX1665.

<2> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, Historic England Archive AF1079113 RCHME: Hambledon Hill, Dorset (Excavation archive). SDO20294.

<3> National Record of the Historic Environment, 1058059 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Jan 23 2025 10:27AM