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Summary

A Bronze Age bowl barrow, the only earthwork survivor of a barrow cemetery.

Monument Type(s):

• BOWL BARROW (Bronze Age - 2500 BC to 701 BC)
• CREMATION (Bronze Age - 2500 BC to 701 BC)

Associated Events:

• Fenland Survey Project, 1976-1989

Protected Status:

• Scheduled Monument 1015243: Bowl barrow 630m south east of Waterhall Farm, part of the Chippenham barrow cemetery
• SHINE (Validated): Eastern extent of Chippenham barrow cemetery, comprising one Bronze Age barrow surviving as slight earthwork and another two excavated in 1939-40.

Full description

1. A fairly substantial round barrow in a plantation. Height under 1m and 30m diameter. The plantation has now been cleared and the barrow is surrounded by a ploughed field and lies some 100m S of the Ely-Bury St Edmunds railway line. It is grass and nettle covered and supports elder, hawthorn and sycamore. Ploughing too close to the monument is flattening the profile and reducing the diameter.
2. Barrow is only just distinguishable in summer conditions. Probably there are others here, but could only be seen without vegetation. Presumably they have been ploughed some time in the past.
3. "Occupies the NE corner of the copse, and the excavation in 1940 (Leaf) (sic) showed that it was a simple unditched mound about 70ft in diameter. Contained a central core of hard send, covering a simple cremation. Overhanging rim urn found. Flint implements and microliths also found." (This information comes from the PRC but appears to be very confused - some of it seems rather to apply to barrow 'b' Rn 04465, which may even be the same barrow as this.)
4. Earthwork barrow diameter 25.5m. No finds. Fenland survey Rn59, CHI S4. Earthwork. Old Pasture. SAM
5. TL/6846/6690. The earthwork stands 1m high and is covered in trees. Land around has been taken out of cultivation. It will be used to graze sheep over the next few years until the grass is suitable for horses. The farm manager has cleared scrub off the barrow, intends to gas rabbits and will erect fence around monument to protect it. Land changed hands last year. Sketch of barrows in the immediate area on SMR update sheet.
6. The monument includes a Bronze Age bowl barrow located to the south of the Ely to Bury St Edmunds railway line, and to the east of Chippenham Road. The barrow stands within a level area of pasture near the top of a gradual south facing slope. The mound measures c.34m in diameter and c.0.7m high, with a flattened summit and shallow sloping sides.
The barrow was first noted in the late 1930s. Two adjacent barrows (within the plantation which then covered the site) were excavated in 1940. The first of these lay some 20m to the east of the surviving barrow, and was found to be a ditchless mound with a core of compact sand overlying the cremated remains of one adult and at least one child. The second barrow lay c.0.6m to the SSW. This mound was encircled by a buried ditch and contained a similar sandy core, in this case overlying a surface of packed flint. The primary burial could not be identified here, although two secondary cremation burials were uncovered in the upper part of the core. Both barrows were thoroughly archaeologically excavated and the area has subsequently been ploughed. The remaining earthwork was partly examined by trial trench in 1940 but not fully excavated, neither was it cultivated following the removal of the plantation in the 1960s. In addition to being the last surviving member of this small group of barrows, the monument also forms part of a wider alignment of barrows which extends from east to west across the low chalk escarpment to the south of Chippenham Park (the Chippenham barrow cemetery. This alignment included at least ten such barrows, of which seven (including this one) still remain, the furthest sited near the present junction of the A11 and the A14 some 1.5km to the west. The alignment broadly coincides with the route of the Roman road between Great Chesterford and Thetford (the Icknield Way). This cemetery (together with other barrows located more widely along the route) is indicative of a far earlier prehistoric trackway following the chalk escarpment.

<1> Paterson, H, Fieldwork Notes (no date) (Unpublished document). SCB16782.

<2> CCC Archaeology, 1977, Fieldwork Notes (Unpublished document). SCB16785.

<3> Leaf, C.S., 1940, Further Excavations in Bronze Age Barrows at Chippenham, Cambs. PCAS 39: 29-68, p. 30-34 (Article in serial). SCB10158.

<4> Hall, D.N., 1996, The Fenland Project, Number 10: Cambridgeshire Survey, The Isle of Ely and Wisbech, CHI 54 (Bibliographic reference). SCB16086.

<5> CCC Archaeology, 1992, SMR up-date sheet: Round Barrow, Chippenham (Unpublished document). SCB16787.

<6> English Heritage, 1996, Bowl barrow 630m south east of Waterhall Farm, part of the Chippenham barrow cemetery, SAM 27177 (Scheduling record). SCB16789.

<7> Stevens, P.A., Field Investigator Comments, 11/5/81 (Verbal communication). SCB60592.

<8> Phillips, A. S., Field Investigator Comments, 26/5/68 (Verbal communication). SCB61299.

Sources and further reading

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