Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

monument includes a bowl barrow situated just below the summit of a chalk rise which forms part of the Kent Downs. The barrow has a roughly circular mound 15m in diameter and surviving to a height of circa 1.2m, surrounded by a ditch from which material used to construct the barrow was excavated. This has become infilled over the years, and survives as a buried feature circa 2m wide. The earthwork was originally interpreted as a belvedere.

Monument Types

• BOWL BARROW (BELVEDERE, Bronze Age - 2350 BC to 701 BC)

Full description

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TR 21225056: On the summit of a ridge of Barham Downs, beside a surviving portion of agger of the Canterbury-Dover Roman road (RR1a), there is a conical mound some 17.5m in diameter and 2.3m in height. Its shape and position suggest a barrow, but as it falls in the corner of Barham Court, with a fine view to the south and an ornamental tree nearby, there is a strong possibility it is nothing more than a belvedere mound. Surveyed at 1:2500 (q.v. RR 1A, KM TR 2150). (1) From the National Heritage List for England:

The monument includes a bowl barrow situated just below the summit of a chalk rise which forms part of the Kent Downs. The barrow has a roughly circular mound 15m in diameter and surviving to a height of c.1.2m, surrounded by a ditch from which material used to construct the barrow was excavated. This has become infilled over the years, and survives as a buried feature c.2m wide.
MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.
Reasons for Designation
Bowl barrows, the most numerous form of round barrow, are funerary monuments dating from the Late Neolithic period to the Late Bronze Age, with most examples belonging to the period 2400-1500 BC. They were constructed as earthen or rubble mounds, sometimes ditched, which covered single or multiple burials. They occur either in isolation or grouped as cemeteries and often acted as a focus for burials in later periods. Often superficially similar, although differing widely in size, they exhibit regional variations in form and a diversity of burial practices. There are over 10,000 surviving bowl barrows recorded nationally (many more have already been destroyed), occurring across most of lowland Britain. Often occupying prominent locations, they are a major historic element in the modern landscape and their considerable variation of form and longevity as a monument type provide important information on the diversity of beliefs and social organisations amongst early prehistoric communities. They are particularly representative of their period and a substantial proportion of surviving examples are considered worthy of protection.

Despite some disturbance by tree growth, the bowl barrow south east of Rectory Lane survives well and will contain archaeological remains and environmental evidence relating to the monument and the landscape in which it was constructed. To the north east are several further bowl barrows of broadly contemporary date, a trackway of prehistoric origin and a barrow field dating to the early medieval period, which are the subjects of separate schedulings. The close association of these monuments provides evidence for the continuing importance of this area for burial practices over a period of around 3,000 years (4)

<1> F1 CFW 02.MAR.65 (OS Card Reference). SKE42386.

<2> Field report for monument TR 25 SW 26 - March, 1965 (Bibliographic reference). SKE5797.

<3> English Heritage Schedule Entry Revised 06-JUN-1995 (OS Card Reference). SKE54851.

<4> English Heritage, Register of Scheduled Monuments (Scheduling record). SKE16191.

Sources and further reading