Ogbourne St Andrew Barrow Round Barrow(s) View all content for Ogbourne St Andrew Barrow

Details of site on Pastscape A Bronze Age bowl barrow situated in the corner of Ogbourne St Andrew Churchyard. Excavations in 1885 by Henry Cunnington located primary Bronze Age cremation, an Anglo-Saxon inhumation and about twenty intrusive inhumations thought to be part of the medieval churchyard. In 1974 the barrow was visible as an earthwork 23 metres in diameter, 1.6 metres high with an 0.3 metre deep mutilation in the top. (SU 1888 7234) Tumulus (NR). (1) A round barrow in Ogbourne St Andrew churchyard, excavated by Henry Cunnington in 1885. He found about 20 skeletons in the top 2 or 3 feet; a skeleton in a fir-wood coffin with iron clamps, near the centre and 5 ft down; a cremation wrapped in a cloth and associated with a flint knife and a small 'food vessel' at 7 ft; and, at the old ground level, abundant traces of wood ash and cremations, irregularly scattered, and 'what appeared to be the side of a trench' some 6 or 7 ft in length and lined with wood. Other items found in the excavation were a fine leaf-shaped arrowhead just below the surface at the top of the barrow, and several 'interesting flint implements and rubbers of sarsen stone, turned up in the course of excavation'. Cunnington interpreted the 20 skeletons as medieval burials (probably of poor people as there were no traces of coffins); the skeleton in the coffin as probably Saxon; and the lower level remains as (inferentially) Bronze Age, with the trench feature possibly the remains of a (primary) burial pit. (2). Other authorities (3, 4, 5, 6) give summaries of the excavation without dissenting from Cunnington's conclusions. The cremation cloth is separately discussed (7). The skeleton and coffin are generally accepted as probably Saxon, and are illustrated by Baldwin Brown; they went to Devizes Museum (4). The dimensions of the barrow are given by Cunnington as Diam c 85ft, height at least 11ft; and Grinsell gives practically the same. (2-8) SU 18877233. A bowl barrow 23.0 metres in diameter and 1.6 metres high with an 0.3 metre deep mutilation in the top. Tree covered. Resurveyed at 1:2500. (9)

Posted by Chance 11th November 2012ce

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