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SEVEN SISTERS

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DESCRIPTION

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A round barrow of Neolithic origin, excavated by William Greenwell and TW Robinson in 1877. At the time, the barrow measured 66 feet in diameter and stood 7.75 feet high. The scheduled monument details (1998) describe it as 3 metres high and 25 metres in diameter, although in 1976 the Ordnance Survey found it to be 23 metres in diameter an 1.6 metres high on the uphill side. The excavations uncovered several disarticulated inhumations burnt in situ within a matrix of burnt limestone and charcoal, the area defined by a rectangular setting of boulders with signs of burning on its inner face. This setting, located circa 1.5 metres south of the centre, measured circa 10 metres by 1.8 metres, and was aligned east-west. Terminal pits with charcoal-rich fills were present to the east. The mound itself was composed of boulders and slabs and capped with earth and stones. There were apparently traces of a boulder kerb, although the Ordnance Survey could find no traces of this in 1974. Within the mound were a series of Early Bronze Age secondary interments including traces of a child inhumation in a stone-lined cist with capstone and paving slab; an inhumation with a food vessel at its head; a cremation beneath an inverted food vessel, within a stone setting; and other traces of cremations and inhumations. Near the summit of the mound was an extended inhumation within a stone cist, believed to be of Anglo-Saxon date. The barrow is known as Seven Sisters, after the trees which stand on it.

DETAIL

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MORE INFORMATION & SOURCES

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(NZ 3534 4922) Tumulus (NR) (1)

Copt Hill round barrow measuring 66ft diameter and 7.75ft high excavated by Greenwell and Robinson in 1877. About 5ft S of the centre were the burnt and disjointed remains of an unknown number of Neolithic inhumations covered by a deposit of limestone and wood. Eight BA burials were also discovered. Four were cremations; including one deposited in a collared urn, and the remainder were inhumations. These included a child burial within a stone cist and another burial accompanied by a food vessel. Near the summit of the mound, about 10ft SSW of the centre was an extended burial within a stone cist, thought to be Anglo-Saxon. Finds in the British Museum. (2)

Supposed Anglo-Saxon inhumation listed by Meaney. (3)

A round cairn about 23.0m diameter (though slightly encroached on
by ploughing in the E) and 1.6m high from the uphill E side. It is now visible as a turf-covered stony mound with four trees on it. There is no kerb. The centre contains a roughly rectangular depression about 0.5m deep, 2.5m E-W by 2.0m, but there is no trace of any cist. (See G/P from the SE). Surveyed at 1:1250. (4)

NZ 3534 4922, Copt Hill, Houghton-le-Spring. A detailed description is given of the initial deposition and later burials found in this barrow. A large number of additional bibliographic references is given. (5)

A grass and tree covered cairn, false crest sited on the scarp slope of the East Durham Plateau. Excavated 20th Sept 1877 by Greenwell and Robinson. Revealed a primary interment in what Greenwell interpreted as a 'flue cremation', but which is probably a mortuary structure of Neolithic date. Bronze Age burials were also discovered. Grave goods now in British Museum. Site known locally as the 'Seven Sisters' because of the seven trees which grow on it. Group A.
Additional bibliographic references are given. (6)

NZ 353 492. Copt Hill.
Additional references. (7) (8) (9)

Copt Hill Barrow, Houghton-le-Spring.
Food vessel found with a secondary inhumation in Copt Hill Barrow.16 ft. ENE of the centre and 3 ft. 4 in. above the old ground level. No further details. Now lost. (10)

NZ 353 492. Seven Sisters round barrow, Copt Hill. Scheduled No TW/12. (11)

SOURCE TEXT

( 1) Ordnance Survey Map (Scale / Date)

OS 6" 1923

( 2) Archaeologia Aeliana : or miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity

Trechman, CT. Prehistoric burials in the County of Durham. 11, 1914 Page(s)123-130

( 3) by Audrey Meaney 1964 A gazetteer of early Anglo-Saxon burial sites

Page(s)83

( 4) Field Investigators Comments

F1 ISS 29-NOV-76

(5) by Roger Miket 1984 The prehistory of Tyne and Wear : an inventory of prehistoric discoveries in the Metropolitan County of Tyne and Wear

Page(s)53

(6) by Robert Young 1980 An inventory of barrows in County Durham

Transactions of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and NorthumberlandOld series vol 1 (1862) - vol 11 (1965) 5, 1980 Page(s)9

(7) by Ian Kinnes 1979 Round barrows and ring-ditches in the British Neolithic

British Museum occasional papers no.7 Page(s)10,58,80

(8) edited by Philip Rahtz, Tania Dickinson and Lorna Watts 1980 Anglo-Saxon cemeteries 1979 : the fourth Anglo-Saxon symposium at Oxford

BAR British series1 (1974) - 82 (1980) Page(s)300

(9) by Trevor G Cowie 1978 Bronze Age Food Vessel urns in northern Britain

BAR British series1 (1974) - 55, 1978 Page(s)34-5, 64, 82-3

(10) by Alex M Gibson 1978 Bronze Age pottery in the northeast of England

BAR British series1 (1974) - 56 Page(s)68

(11) English Heritage 1995 County list of Scheduled Monuments : March 1994

Tyne and Wear Page(s)8

(12) Scheduled Monument Notification

02-DEC-1998

(13) by I A Kinnes and I H Longworth 1985 Catalogue of the excavated prehistoric and Romano-British material in the Greenwell Collection

Page(s)132

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