More information : (ST 78623765) Tumulus (GT) (1)
Excavated by Colt Hoare; a low tumulus which he found to have 'once contained a skeleton' but to have been disturbed, probably by the county boundary ditch. He found many fragments of 'ancient pottery' near it and, in the boundary ditch, several small brass coins of the Lower Empire; these he supposed to be connected with a beacon rather than a settlement, for which he held the site to be unsuitable.
Indentified by VCH as a bowl barrow, 13 paces in diameter and 3ft high.
MOW records describe it as a disc barrow, 66ft in diameter, 18" high, with a ditch 2ft deep. The centre had been dug out for a concrete trig-pillar. It was under grass in 1955. (2-4)
A bowl barrow 14.0m in diameter and 0.4m high, not 3ft as Grinsell says. Its perimeter consists of a small bank, about 1.0m wide and 0.1m high with, on the E and W, an equally weak ditch - 1.0m wide and 0.2m deep. This has presumably given rise to the MOW disc barrow identification. The bank and ditch are unlikely to be original features but were probably created after Hoare's excavation in the fashion of a tree ring. A hollow 4.0m wide and 0.2m deep in the centre of the mound could represent site of a tree or Hoare's excavation. The N side of the barrow has been destroyed by the Parish boundary ditch. The area is under pasture and the narrowness of the ridge would, as Hoare states, be unsuitable for a settlement. The Roman coins found by him may indicate casual occupation. His suggestion of a beacon site is obviously speculative.
1:2500 survey revised, on AM. (5)
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