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Summary

One of four bowl barrows north of the A11/A14 junction, part of the Chippenham barrow cemetery.

Monument Type(s):

• ROUND BARROW (Bronze Age - 2500 BC? to 701 BC?)

Protected Status:

• Scheduled Monument 1015246: Four bowl barrows N of the A11/A14 junction, part of the Chippenham barrow cemetery

Full description

1. 6 Barrows - 4 extant; 1 site of, 1 natural feature.
2. Shown on map as BA barrows.
3. Group of 6 tumuli, at present under crop so that full survey is impractible. The tumuli are clearly mis-sited on OS 6in. Barrow 'F' (Grid reference taken from <4>) - Bowl barrow 40,0m in diameter and 0,7m high.
4. Site 'F' is destroyed or mutilated by new A11 bypass. 'F' A slight rise in undulating chalk partially cut by the boundary of the new A11 bypass. Averages 40,0m in diameter by 0,4m high, but only the W half survives. Published 1:2500 survey revised on MSD.
6. One of four Bronze Age bowl barrows located within an arable field to the north of the junction of the A11 and the A14 (Newmarket bypass). The barrows are arranged in a broadly east-west alignment across the chalk escarpment to the north of Newmarket, separated by intervals of between 70m and 100m.
All four barrows remain unexcavated, although ploughing has reduced the mounds to low earthworks in the otherwise level field. This barrow lies approximately 300m north east of the pumping station (100m from its neighbour to the south west). It was partly destroyed during the construction of the new A11 in 1973, although the north western half of the mound survives adjacent to the field boundary, measuring 40m across and 0.5m high.
The barrows, which were first recorded in 1923, form part of a linear cemetery which included at least ten similar barrows spread over a distance of c.1.5km to the south of Chippenham Park (the Chippenham barrow cemetery). To the south and east, two barrows survive in small copses to the south of the A11 at Hilly Plantation (PRN 04425) and The Rookery (PRN 04424). The furthest extant barrow (PRN 04467) lies to the south of the Ely to Bury St Edmunds railway line, some 1.1km to the east of the road junction. The most westerly feature of the cemetery lay c.230m south west of the pumping station. The east-west alignment of the barrow cemetery, together with the positions of further isolated barrows to the south west of Newmarket and to the north east near Kennett and Barton Mills, broadly correlates with the course of the Roman road between Great Chesterford and Thetford (the Icknield Way). The barrows were clearly located to be visible from a prehistoric precursor to this route.

<1> CCC Archaeology, 1985?, SMR Primary Record Card (Unpublished document). SCB2342.

<2> Fox, C., 1923, The Archaeology of the Cambridge Region, 30 (map) (Bibliographic reference). SCB1232.

<3> ASP, 1968, OS field notes (Unpublished document). SCB16678.

<4> Martin, E. A. and Denston, C.B., 1976, The excavation of two tumuli on Waterhall Farm, Chippenham, Cambridgeshire, 1973. PCAS 66: 1-22 (Article in serial). SCB10858.

<5> PAS, 1981, OS field notes 1981 (Unpublished document). SCB16675.

<6> English Heritage, 1997, Four bowl barrows N of the A11/A14 junction, part of the Chippenham barrow cemetery, SAM 27180 (Scheduling record). SCB16792.

<7> 1972, OS 1:10000 map (Map). SCB8759.

<8> 1958, OS 6 inch map (Map). SCB8962.

Sources and further reading

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