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MONUMENT NO. 221486

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A Bronze Age bowl barrow situated in the corner of Ogbourne St Andrew Churchyard. Excavations in 1885 by Henry Cunnington located primary Bronze Age cremation, an Anglo-Saxon inhumation and about twenty intrusive inhumations thought to be part of the medieval churchyard. In 1974 the barrow was visible as an earthwork 23 metres in diameter, 1.6 metres high with an 0.3 metre deep mutilation in the top.

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(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)

SOURCE TEXT

( 1) Ordnance Survey Map (Scale / Date)

OS 6" 1960

( 2) The Wiltshire archaeological and natural history magazine

H Cunnington 22, 1884-5 Page(s)345-8

( 3) The Wiltshire archaeological and natural history magazine

EH Goddard 38, 1913-4 Page(s)300

( 4) The Wiltshire archaeological and natural history magazine

ME Cunnington 46, 1932-4 Page(s)165

( 5) edited by R B Pugh and Elizabeth Crittall 1957 A history of Wiltshire: volume 1, part 1

The Victoria history of the counties of England Page(s)186

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

Page(s)271

( 7) Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society

AS Henshall 16, 1950 Page(s)158

( 8) by G Baldwin Brown 1915 The arts in early England, volume 3. Saxon art and industry in the pagan period

Page(s)1, XVIII

( 9) Field Investigators Comments

F1 MJF 23-DEC-1974

(10) Helen Geake 1997 The use of grave-goods in conversion-period England, c.600-c.850

British Archaeological Report (BAR) British series1 (1974) - 261 Page(s)186

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