Monument record MDO6092 - Bowl Barrow, one of the Scrubbity Barrows Group, Sixpenny Handley

A bowl barrow recorded in 1975 as being around 52 feet in diameter, with a mound four feet high. This barrow was excavated by Pitt-Rivers, who found a crouched burial inside a boat-shaped tree-trunk coffin.

HER comment: The text of <3> says 'cremation' but this must surely be an inhumation.

Scrubbity Barrows; a group of round barrows all excavated, but most partially, by General Pitt-Rivers. Pitt-Rivers reconstituted the barrows which he dug. Details are as follows: (A) ST 97251788. Bowl barrow 52ft in diameter by 4ft high (Pitt-Rivers ix). It contained a primary crouched cremation in a boat-shaped tree-trunk coffin. A flint knife and axe and hundreds of flint flakes were found in the mound. <2> <4>

A bowl barrow in Scrubbity Coppice, one of a group excavated by Pitt Rivers in 1882-3. Pitt Rivers' barrow ix (RCHME's Sixpenny Handley 43, Grinsell's Handley 1), it was excavated between December 15th and 31st 1882. Prior to excavation, it was visible as a mound 52 feet in diameter and 4.5 feet maximum height. Excavation showed it to be surrounded by a ditch 5 feet wide at the top. At the centre was a wooden boat-shaped coffin, cut from a single trunk. Circa 4 feet 2 inches by 1 foot 9 inches, it was orientated northwest-southeast and contained a sigle cremation deposit. Pitt Rivers stated that the coffin rested in a pit ("hole") circa 1 foot deep dug into the chalk below the mound. However, the published section appears to show the coffin placed in the top of a small primary mound of chalk rubble and earth. Other finds from the barrow mound included a flint knife, a flint axehead, 595 flint flakes and some potsherds. [NB this record formerly contained details of all barrows in the Scrubbity Coppice. These have now been recorded separately - see associated monument records] <5>

<1> Pitt Rivers, A H L F, 1888, Excavations in Barrows near Rushmore. Excavations in the Romano-British village Rotherly. Excavations in Cranborne Chase vol II Rushmore, 3-5, 32-44 (Monograph). SDO16665.

<2> Grinsell, L V, 1959, Dorset Barrows, 112 (Monograph). SDO132.

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

(Centred ST 972178) Scrubbity Barrows (NR)

<4> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1975, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume V (East), 72 (Monograph). SDO129.

‘Scrubbity Barrows (43-50), a group of eight, lie on the S.W. slope of a dry valley in woodland between Woodcutts Common and Handley Common; all were excavated, but most only partially, by Pitt-Rivers (Excavations II (1888), 3-5, 32-44) … (43) Bowl (97251788), (Pitt-Rivers ix) contained a primary crouched cremation in a boat-shaped tree-trunk coffin. A flint knife and axe and hundreds of flint flakes were found in the mound. Diam. 52 ft., ht. 4 ft.’

<5> National Record of the Historic Environment, 209760 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Sep 12 2024 11:00AM