More information : (SU 1888 7234) Tumulus (NR). (1)
A round barrow in Ogbourne St Andrew churchyard, excavated by
Henry Cunnington in 1885. He found about 20 skeletons in the top
2 or 3 feet; a skeleton in a fir-wood coffin with iron clamps,
near the centre and 5 ft down; a cremation wrapped in a cloth and
associated with a flint knife and a small 'food vessel' at 7 ft;
and, at the old ground level, abundant traces of wood ash and
cremations, irregularly scattered, and 'what appeared to be the
side of a trench' some 6 or 7 ft in length and lined with wood.
Other items found in the excavation were a fine leaf-shaped
arrowhead just below the surface at the top of the barrow,
and several 'interesting flint implements and rubbers of sarsen
stone, turned up in the course of excavation'. Cunnington
interpreted the 20 skeletons as medieval burials (probably of poor
people as there were no traces of coffins); the skeleton in the
coffin as probably Saxon; and the lower level remains as
(inferentially) Bronze Age, with the trench feature possibly
the remains of a (primary) burial pit. (2).
Other authorities (3, 4, 5, 6) give summaries of the excavation
without dissenting from Cunnington's conclusions. The
cremation cloth is separately discussed (7). The skeleton and
coffin are generally accepted as probably Saxon, and are
illustrated by Baldwin Brown; they went to Devizes Museum (4).
The dimensions of the barrow are given by Cunnington as Diam c
85ft, height at least 11ft; and Grinsell gives practically the same.
(2-8)
SU 18877233. A bowl barrow 23.0 metres in diameter and 1.6 metres high with an 0.3 metre deep mutilation in the top. Tree covered.
Resurveyed at 1:2500. (9)
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