Scheduled Monument: Longmans Hill Long Barrow (1010246)

DESCRIPTION OF THE MONUMENT The barrow known as Longman's Hill is located at the western end of Pitsford village, just to the north of the High Street. This long barrow consists of a rectangular mound, which measures 30m from east to west and 11m from north to south. The barrow stands 1.5m high at the east end and 2m high at the west end with a flat top about 3m wide. At the western end the mound has been truncated by a modern pathway, but the major part of the barrow mound is complete. There is no trace of the side ditches but it is considered that the northern ditch remains buried and that the southern ditch was damaged when the adjacent road was built in the 19th century. The northern ditch is believed to survive to its original width of 4m while the surviving portion of the southern ditch is 2m wide. It is recorded that a tumulus containing Saxon burials was explored in the vicinity in the last century, although the location of this investigation is not known with certainty. It is possible that the Neolithic long barrow was reused for burials in the Saxon period. ASSESSMENT OF IMPORTANCE Long barrows were constructed as earthen or drystone mounds with flanking ditches and acted as funerary monuments during the Early and Middle Neolithic periods (3400-2400 BC). They represent the burial places of Britain's early farming communities and, as such, are amongst the oldest field monuments surviving visibly 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 monument preceding the barrow and, consequently, it is probable that long barrows acted as important ritual sites for local communities over a considerable period of time. Some 500 long barrows are recorded in England. As one of the few types of Neolithic structure to survive as earthworks, and due to their comparative rarity, their considerable age and their longevity as a monument type, all long barrows are considered to be nationally important. Although Longmans Hill barrow has been slightly altered and may have been partially excavated, it retains considerable archaeological potential in the surviving mound of the barrow and its buried ditches.

Record last edited

Sep 6 2023 9:37AM