Monument record MDO6083 - Bowl barrow on Wyke Down, Sixpenny Handley

A bowl barrow reported as being around 50 feet in diameter with a mound around one foot high. Excavations by Pitt-Rivers showed that the mound covered three pits containing cremation burials, two of them in collared urns. None of the cremations were located centrally within the mound. The mound is surrounded by a ditch.

(SU 00461585) Tumulus (NR). <3>

(35) Bowl (00461585), on the W. slope of Wyke Down, immediately S. of the Salisbury-Blandford road, was excavated by Pitt-Rivers (Excavations IV (1898), 172-81). The mound, about 50 ft. in diameter and 1 ft. high, covered three cremations in pits, none centrally placed, but all apparently primary; two were in collared urns, one of late Neolithic or earlier Bronze Age type (P.P.S., XXVII (1961), 294); the third had no associated finds. The surrounding ditch contained fragments of comparable pottery in the lower filling, and Romano-British pottery in the upper levels. <4>

The barrow is listed by Grinsell as Handley 28, the same number given to the barrow by Pitt Rivers. Note that Grinsell erroneously claimed that all three cremations were accompanied by urns. <1, 2>

<1> Pitt-Rivers, A H L F, 1898, Excavations in Cranborne Chase near Rushmore on the Borders of Dorset and Wilts 1893-96 Volume IV, 172-181 (Monograph). SDO16623.

<2> Grinsell, L V, 1959, Dorset Barrows, 114 (Monograph). SDO132.

<3> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1963 (Map). SWX1540.

<4> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1975, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume V (East), 71 (Monograph). SDO129.

'(35) Bowl (00461585), on the W. slope of Wyke Down, immediately S. of the Salisbury-Blandford road, was excavated by Pitt-Rivers (Excavations IV (1898), 172-81). The mound, about 50 ft. in diameter and 1 ft. high, covered three cremations in pits, none centrally placed, but all apparently primary; two were in collared urns, one of the late Neolithic or earlier Bronze Age type (P.P.S., XXVII (1961), 294); the third had no associated finds. The surrounding ditch contained fragments of comparable pottery in the lower filling, and Romano-British pottery in the upper levels.'

<5> National Record of the Historic Environment, 213525 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Oct 24 2022 12:00PM