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Description

Reasons for Designation Long barrows were constructed as earthen or drystone mounds, generally with flanking ditches. They acted as funerary monuments during the Early and Middle Neolithic periods (3400-2400 BC), representing the burial places of Britain's early farming communities, and as such are amongst the oldest field monuments surviving in the present landscape. Where investigated, long barrows appear to have been used for communal burial, often with only parts of the human remains having been selected for interment. Certain sites provide evidence for several phases of funerary activities preceding the construction of the barrow mound, including ditched enclosures containing structures related to various rituals of burial. It is probable, therefore, that long barrows acted as important spiritual sites for their local communities over considerable periods of time. The long barrows of the Lincolnshire Wolds and their adjacent regions have been identified as a distinct regional grouping of monuments in which the flanking ditches are continued around the ends of the barrow mound, either continuously or broken by a single causeway towards one end. More than 60 examples of this type of monument are known; a small number of these survive as earthworks, but the great majority of sites are known as cropmarks and soilmarks recorded on aerial photographs where no mound is evident at the surface. Not all Lincolnshire long barrows include mounds. Current limited understanding of the processes of Neolithic mortuary ritual in Lincolnshire is that the large barrow mound represents the final phase of construction which was not reached by all mortuary monuments. Many of the sites where only the ditched enclosure is known have been interpreted as representing monuments which had fully evolved mounds, but in which the mound itself has been degraded or removed by subsequent agricultural activity. In a minority of cases, however, the ditched enclosure will represent a monument which never developed a burial mound. As a distinctive regional grouping of one of the few types of Neolithic monuments known, these sites are of great value. They were all in use over a great period of time and are thus highly representive of changing cultures of the peoples who built and maintained them. All forms of long barrow on the Lincolnshire Wolds and its adjacent regions are therefore considered to be of national importance and all examples with significant surviving remains are considered worthy of protection. Although the mound of the Neolithic long barrow west of Hoe Hill Farm has been degraded by ploughing, geophysical survey has demonstrated that significant remains survive buried beneath the present ground surface. Rare archaeological and environmental evidence will be preserved on and in the old buried ground surface and in the fills of the ditch. These will provide valuable information relating to the date and construction of the monument, the sequence of mortuary ritual at the site, and to the nature of the landscape in which the monument was set. The barrow's close proximity to Cromwell's Grave long barrow indicates the ritual significance of this area in the Neolithic period. These monuments are part of a wider barrow group associated with the Waithe Beck Valley and, as a group, are considered particularly valuable for the study of Neolithic settlement patterns and communication routes in this part of the Lincolnshire Wolds. Details The monument includes the buried remains of a Neolithic long barrow located c.80m above sea level on the gently sloping eastern side of the Waithe Beck valley, approximately 450m west of Hoe Hill Farm and 100m to the west of the extant long barrow known as Cromwell's Grave, the subject of a separate scheduling, whose east-west alignment it shares. The mound, which is known to have existed until around 1906, was once situated within a copse which has since been cleared and the mound has been subsequently degraded by ploughing. However, the gap in the field boundary hedge indicates its site; the monument is clearly visible as a cropmark and can be plotted from aerial photographs. Geophysical surveys were carried out between 1983 and 1987 and these established the presence of a ditch some 13m from the centre of the mound, indicating that the overall dimensions of the monument are 70m long by 30m wide. The monument, together with Cromwell's Grave and the long barrows at Ash Hill, Thorganby and Ash Holt are thought to form a group associated with the valley of the Waithe Beck. Sources Books and journals Bonnor, L D, Griffiths, D W, Skitter to Hatton 4050mm diameter pipeline, 1993, (1993) Phillips, P, 'BAR' in Archaeology and Landscape Studies in North Lincolnshire, (1989), 10 Phillips, P, 'BAR' in Archaeology and Landscape Studies in North Lincolnshire, (1989) Phillips, C W, 'Archaeological Journal' in The Long Barrows of Lincolnshire, , Vol. 89, (1933) Other discussion with local landowner, Theobald, B, (1995) discussion, Jones, D, (1995)

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