More information : NB this barrow was originally recorded as part of SU 17 SW 57 (Barrow 'D'). That record should be consulted for some additional sources and information.
'D' SU 11417099. Bowl barrow, diam 15 paces; height 5' . Excavated by Merewether (barrow 5). Primary (?) cremation in a large cist on the natural surface of the ground, covered with black substance like pounded charcoal. (1-2)
D. SU 11417098. A ditchless bowl barrow, 15m overall diameter and 1.1m high. (3)
All four barrow mounds in the group were mapped at 1:10,000 from APs by the Fyfield Down and Overton Down Mapping Project. No additional information was recorded. (4-5)
Merewether dug into the barrow on August 11th 1849. His account of the excavation is as follows: "This barrow, the last of the five eastward, did not produce in course of its excavation the ordinary quantity of fragments of bone, teeth, or pottery, but was unusually compact and close in its materials; at about 7 feet deep, - the level of the adjacent down, - we came to a cist formed in the natural chalk, filled with burnt human bones, the produce of apparently more than one body. This cist was the largest of those I have met with of this kind; but there was no urn, nor any fragment of pottery, to indicate that the bones had been deposited otherwise than they were found, - they were covered with the black substance like pounded charcoal." Merewether clearly refers to this barrow as a bell barrow, yet both Grinsell and the Ordnance Survey describe it as a bowl barrow. (1-5)
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