Monument record MDO5118 - Bowl barrow, Tarrant Monkton

Site of a bowl barrow destroyed during the construction of Blandford Camp. A sub-circular 12m in diameter mound visible visible as an earthwork on 1940s aerial photographs and current Environment Agency lidar imagery may be the remains of the barrow. In a 1948 aerial photograph, the mound is visible on the west side, and possibly slightly underneath, of a military accommodation hut. The feature was digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AIM project.

(ST 92040763) Tumulus (NR). <1>

Round barrow destroyed during the construction of Blandford Military Camp. <3>

A sub-circular 12m in diameter mound visible visible as an earthwork on 1940s aerial photographs and current Environment Agency lidar imagery may be the remains of the barrow. <5> <6>
In a 1948 aerial photograph, the mound is visible on the west side, and possibly slightly underneath, of a military accommodation hut. <5>
The feature was digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AIM project.

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, OS 6" 1938 (Map). SWX1540.

<2> Grinsell, L V, 1959, Dorset Barrows, 136 (Monograph). SDO132.

<3> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1972, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume IV (North), 110 (Monograph). SDO99.

'Monuments (22-24), Round Barrows. Three barrows remain, but ten others have been destroyed since 1914 in the construction of Blandford military camp (Dorset Barrows, 136). Three of the destroyed monuments (Dorset Barrows, Nos. 2-4) lay around 914080, in an E.-W. line at the W. end of Monkton Down; two (Nos. 5 and 6) lay on the W. of Pond Bottom Plantation, around 920076, forming a compact group with (23) and (24); five (Nos. 9-13) lay W. of Blackland Plantaton, between 929086 and 930081. None of these barrows is known to have been excavated and all references to early excavations in Tarrant Monkton concern barrows in Launceston, which until the 19th century was part of Monkton parish. Certain barrows, however, which were excavated 'on Keynston Down' in 1846, may have been inside the boundary of Monkton (see Tarrant Keyneston, Round Barrows). Air photographs (C.U.A.P., ANC 73,74) show soil-marks of four ring-ditches, probably the remains of barrows, in a tight cluster at 95480934.'

<4> National Record of the Historic Environment, 209351 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

<5> Royal Air Force, 01-JAN-1948, RAF/CPE/UK/2431 RS 4320 (Aerial Photograph). SDO18501.

<6> Environment Agency, 16-NOV-2021, LIDAR Environment Agency DTM (Aerial Photograph). SDO18034.

Record last edited

Jan 8 2024 12:48PM