Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

A round barrow mound dating to around the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age and part of a wider funerary landscape; unusually there is no evidence of a surrounding ditch associated with the mound

Monument Types

• ROUND BARROW (Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age - 3000 BC to 1501 BC)

Full description

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From the National Heritage List for England:

History
Barrows, the most numerous of the various prehistoric funerary monuments, date from the middle-Neolithic to the middle-Bronze Age. Bowl barrows begin to appear from before 3000 BC but the majority belong to the period 2400-1500 BC. They were constructed as earthen or rubble mounds, sometimes ditched, which covered single or multiple burials, and exhibit regional variations in form and a diversity of burial practices. They occur either in isolation or grouped as cemeteries, and often acted as a focus for burials in later periods. Most round barrows from this period are bowl barrows. Bell, disc and pond barrows are considerably rarer.

This barrow is located in a field to the south of Ashford Road, and is approximately 400m north-east of Upper Otterpool Farmhouse (listed Grade II NHLE 106110). It forms part of a wider funerary landscape, being in the vicinity of the earthwork and buried remains of several other similar monuments, most identified as bowl barrows. The field which the barrow stands in has been subject to recent geophysical survey and subsequent trial trenching as part of a wider programme of archaeological investigation in this area. In addition to providing details about the barrow, other archaeological features were identified in the northern end of this field relating to the remains of a Romano-British villa (not part of this scheduling).

Analysis of aerial photos did not reveal any indication of a barrow in this location, although there was a slight rise extending beyond the route of the field boundary visible on LiDAR imagery. Geophysical survey (2017), identified ferrous or magnetic disturbance in this area but this did not clearly indicate archaeological anomalies in a form consistent with a barrow. The barrow was first identified through trial trenching (2018). The mound and buried soils contained sherds of Beaker pottery and Neolithic or early Bronze Age flints, providing an indication of the date after which construction of the barrow must have occurred. The route of a later linear ditch has been found to cross over part of the barrow remains, this is believed to be a post-medieval ditch which corresponds with the location of a field boundary found on the Lympne Tithe map (1839). In recent archaeological investigations the barrow has been identified as barrow 136.

Details
PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS: a round barrow mound dating to around the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age and part of a wider funerary landscape; unusually there is no evidence of a surrounding ditch associated with the mound.

DESCRIPTION: barrow 136 is centred approximately on TR1169136433. It survives as a mound covering an area of approximately 35m. Two trenches placed over this monument have identified a mound layer ranging in depth from 0.10m to 0.56m. It overlays two buried soil horizons, the upper of these was up to 0.18m thick and the lower was up to 0.10m thick. The mound and buried soils contained sherds of Beaker pottery and Neolithic or early Bronze Age flints. The soils sealed by the barrow contained an assemblage of probably early Mesolithic flint and it is thought that further scatters of this date are likely to be preserved beneath the barrow. No evidence of a ring ditch associated with the barrow has been found. A linear post-medieval ditch crosses through part of the barrow, where it has been excavated it measures 1.68m wide and 0.47m deep.

EXTENT OF SCHEDULING: the scheduled area includes a margin of 2m around the full known extent of the barrow, for the support and preservation of the monument.

There are no exclusions. (1)

<1> Historic England, National Heritage List for England (Index). SKE29372.

Sources and further reading