Details

The monument includes a bowl barrow set on a gentle west-facing slope in an
area of undulating chalk downland. The barrow mound is 27m in diameter and
stands 2m high. Although no longer visible at ground level a ditch, from
which material was quarried during construction of the monument, surrounds the
mound. This has become infilled over the years but survives as a buried
feature c.3m wide.
The site has been partially excavated, finds including a cremation burial
underneath the broken leg bone of a pig and a piece of iron pyrites.
The post-and-wire fence which runs across the site is excluded from the
scheduling but the ground beneath it is included.

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.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

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 partial excavation of the barrow mound, the Downs Barn bowl barrow
survives comparatively well and, as one of a pair in close proximity, has
potential for the recovery of archaeological remains and environmental
evidence relating to the nature of Bronze Age communities in this area and the
landscape in which they lived.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
'Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine' in Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine, , Vol. 49, (1958)

Source: Historic England