| Summary : A disc barrow, part of the Oakley Down barrow group (SU 01 NW 19). Listed by RCHME as Wimborne St Giles 112 and by Grinsell as Wimborne St Giles 6, it comprises two mounds surrounded by a single ditch with outer bank. The centralmound is 35 feet in diameter and 2 feet high. The other, a little to the southeast, is 25 feet by 20 feet and less than 1 foot high. The berm is 40 feet across, the ditch is 15 feet wide and 1.5 feet deep, and the outer bank is of "similar dimensions". It was excavated in the early 19th century by Cunnington and Hoare (their barrow 6). Their account is less than clear, but they appear to have trenched the central mound. Hoare suggests that it had been opened previously. Fragments of burned and unburned human bones were taken to indicate the presence of a disturbed cremation and inhumation. They also found a cremation within a pit benath the mound towards its southeast side. Hoare then states that they cut a section across a "ridge" that seemed to connect the two mounds, discovering a very large pottery vessel containing a cremation with amber and faience beads. |