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Summary

Part of a Scheduled Monument. Low circular bank with a shallow external ditch, interpreted as a disc barrow or possible henge type enclosure

Associated Legal Designations or Protected Status

• Scheduled Monument 1012811: ROUND BARROW CEMETERY ON WASH COMMON

Other Statuses and Cross-References

• Berkshire SMR No. (pre 2000): 01046.01.000
  
• National Monuments Record No.: SU 46 SE 21
  SU 4499 6480
• Primary Reference Number: 1298
  

Monument Type(s):

• (Alternate Type) DISC BARROW? (Early Neolithic to Early Bronze Age - 4000 BC? to 1501 BC?)
• (Alternate Type) HENGIFORM MONUMENT? (Neolithic - 4000 BC to 2351 BC)

Full Description

PART OF SM 12075. LOW CIRCULAR BANK, INTERRUPTED BY GAPS, WITH SHALLOW EXTERNAL DITCH ON E SIDE. DITCH MEASURES C7M FROM OUTER EDGE TO CENTRE OF BANK. DIFFICULT TO CLASSIFY. EXCAVATION PRODUCED CONSIDERABLE EVIDENCE OF BURNING, AND PITS SEALED BENEATH BANK CONTAINED BURNT STONE. NO FEATURES FOUND IN CENTRAL AREA.

This monument takes the form of a circular enclosure comprising a bank with outer ditch. It has been scheduled as a disc barrow although there is the possibility that it is closer to a henge in function, and it may be the earliest ritual monument of the Wash Common barrow cemetery (four other round barrows). It was described by Grinsell <1> as a 'ring-mound' 15 feet wide and 2 feet high, with an overall diameter of 130 feet. Its surrounding ditch averaged only 3 foot wide and 1 foot deep.

Some excavations were carried out in the 1960s, when the enclosure was covered with about 90 large trees. No formal excavation report was produced, only interim and summary reports <2><3>. The ditch was 3 feet deep, and in the lowest of the 5 stratified layers recorded, there were numerous pieces of worked flint of Neolithic date. A large quantity of burnt flint and stone and samples of charcoal was also recovered, and a number of bag-shaped pits were found in the old sub-soil beneath the bank. The large central area was featureless apart from two worked flakes.

Sources and further reading

Related Monuments

Associated Excavations and Fieldwork

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