| Summary : A bell barrow, part of the group on Oakley Down (SU 01 NW 19). Listed by RCHME as Wimborne St Giles 121 and by Grinsell as Wimborne St Giles 4, it was described by RCHME as a mound 84 feet in diameter and 10 feet high, surrounded by a sloping berm 12 feet across and a ditch 16 feet wide and 1 foot deep. It was excavated in the early 19th century by Cunnington and Hoare (their barrow 4). At a depth of 12 feet 4 inches was an unaccompanied inhumation. At a depth of 10.5 feet they found two skeletons with a handled pottery vessel with four feet, a shale bead and a bronze dagger. The pottery vessel is in Devizes Museum. Near the surface were some "fragments of a large ornamented urn". In 1950, following disturbance by rabbits, a secondary adult cremation was discovered in an inverted urn which featured 11 "rivet" holes. Nearby were sherds of a second urn and a few burnt bones. Further sherds were found in 1954. |