Location | Salisbury Plain, England |
---|---|
Coordinates | 51°13′15″N1°57′15″W / 51.2208°N 1.95427°W |
Type | Long barrow |
Length | 77.5 metres (254 ft) |
Width | 47 metres (154 ft) |
History | |
Periods | Neolithic |
Site notes | |
Ownership | National Trust |
Identifiers | |
NHLE | 1018159 |
White Barrow is a large Neolithic long barrow just below the crest of Copehill Down on Salisbury Plain, just south of the village of Tilshead in Wiltshire, England. It is a scheduled monument, and the first ancient monument to be purchased by the National Trust.
White Barrow is 77.5 m long and approximately 47 m wide (including the surrounding ditch). It has never been fully excavated, but dating of materials found in and around it suggests that it dates from 3500 to 4000 BC, making it contemporary with other long barrows on Salisbury Plain, as well as the nearby causewayed enclosure called Robin Hood's Ball. The antiquarian Colt Hoare opened the mound in the 1806, [1] and found areas of black earth that he believed to be the remains of a wooden-structured burial chamber. [2]
A geophysical survey by English Heritage in 1997 found evidence of a possible burial chamber or mortuary cairn inside the barrow, and an arc of post pits at its eastern end. A former trackway crossing the site from southwest to northeast was also found. [1]
The barrow was designated as a scheduled monument in 1960. [3]
White Barrow was the first piece of land that the National Trust acquired purely in the interests of archaeological conservation. Prior to that, the Trust had mainly been concerned with open spaces, houses and gardens. The barrow, along with 2.75 acres (11,100 m2) of land, was purchased by subscription in 1909 for £60, at a time when the War Office was rapidly buying up land around it as part of what became the Salisbury Plain Training Area. [4]
In 1998, a family of seven badgers was evicted from a sett they had dug into the barrow. A badger exclusion licence was obtained from English Nature, and English Heritage gave scheduled monument consent. The badgers were lured to a new sett outside of the property, and the barrow was covered in chain link fencing to prevent animals from burrowing into it again. Finds in the badger spoil from the old sett included struck flints, Neolithic and Bronze Age pottery, and part of a red deer antler. [5]
Stonehenge is a prehistoric megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free-standing trilithons, two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice and sunset on the winter solstice. The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred tumuli.
Uffington Castle is an early Iron Age univallate hillfort in Oxfordshire, England. It covers about 32,000 square metres and is surrounded by two earth banks separated by a ditch with an entrance in the western end. A second entrance in the eastern end was apparently blocked up a few centuries after it was built. The original defensive ditch was V-shaped with a small box rampart in front and a larger one behind it. Timber posts stood on the ramparts. Later the ditch was deepened and the extra material dumped on top of the ramparts to increase their size. A parapet wall of sarsen stones lined the top of the innermost rampart. It is very close to the Uffington White Horse on White Horse Hill.
The West Kennet Long Barrow, also known as South Long Barrow, is a chambered long barrow near the village of Avebury in the south-western English county of Wiltshire. Probably constructed in the thirty-seventh century BC, during Britain's Early Neolithic period, today it survives in a partially reconstructed state.
Long barrows are a style of monument constructed across Western Europe in the fifth and fourth millennia BCE, during the Early Neolithic period. Typically constructed from earth and either timber or stone, those using the latter material represent the oldest widespread tradition of stone construction in the world. Around 40,000 long barrows survive today.
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The Medway Megaliths, sometimes termed the Kentish Megaliths, are a group of Early Neolithic chambered long barrows and other megalithic monuments located in the lower valley of the River Medway in Kent, South-East England. Constructed from local sarsen stone and soil between the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE, they represent the only known prehistoric megalithic group in eastern England and the most south-easterly group in Britain.
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The Stonehenge Landscape is a property of The National Trust, located on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England. The estate covers 2,100 acres (850 ha) surrounding the neolithic monument of Stonehenge, which is administered by English Heritage. Much of the land is designated open access by the Trust, including the fields immediately around Stonehenge and other fields that become available as part of the chalk grassland reversion project. Stonehenge itself is in the care of English Heritage, having been given to the nation in 1918 by Cecil and Mary Chubb, who had bought it three years previously from the Antrobus family.
Robin Hood’s Ball is a Neolithic causewayed enclosure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, approximately 5 miles (8 km) northwest of the town of Amesbury, and 2+1⁄2 miles (4.0 km) northwest of Stonehenge. The site was designated as a scheduled monument in 1965.
Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS) in Wiltshire, England. The WHS covers two large areas of land separated by about 24 kilometres (15 mi), rather than a specific monument or building. The sites were inscribed as co-listings in 1986. Some large and well known monuments within the WHS are listed below, but the area also has an exceptionally high density of small-scale archaeological sites, particularly from the prehistoric period. More than 700 individual archaeological features have been identified. There are 160 separate scheduled monuments, covering 415 items or features.
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The Wiltshire Museum, formerly known as Wiltshire Heritage Museum and Devizes Museum, is a museum, archive and library and art gallery established in 1874 in Devizes, Wiltshire, England. The museum was created and is run by the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, a registered charity founded in 1853.
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Scratchbury Camp is the site of an Iron Age univallate hillfort on Scratchbury Hill, overlooking the Wylye valley about 1 km northeast of the village of Norton Bavant in Wiltshire, England. The fort covers an area of 37 acres (15 ha) and occupies the summit of the hill on the edge of Salisbury Plain, with its four-sided shape largely following the natural contours of the hill.
51.71025°N 2.29970°W
Adam's Grave was a Neolithic long barrow near Alton Barnes in Wiltshire, southwest England. Its remains have been scheduled as an ancient monument.
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