Cow Common

Nearest town:
Chipping Norton (17km ENE)
OS reference:
SP135262
OS sheet:
163
Latitude:
51° 56' 1.15 N
Longitude:
1° 48' 13.04 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Cow Common (Barrow / Cairn Cemetery) by thesweetcheat

Cow Common from the southeast, with the long barrow inside its new fence, centre.

Image credit: A. Brookes (29.12.2016)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jan 5, 2017
Image of Cow Common (Barrow / Cairn Cemetery) by thesweetcheat

The southern flank of the long barrow. A dense screen of hawthorn has been planted around the perimeter, so in the next year or so accessing the barrow will be very difficult.

Image credit: A. Brookes (29.12.2016)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jan 5, 2017
Image of Cow Common (Barrow / Cairn Cemetery) by thesweetcheat

Looking west along the top of the overgrown long barrow.

Image credit: A. Brookes (29.12.2016)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jan 5, 2017
Image of Cow Common (Barrow / Cairn Cemetery) by thesweetcheat

Another of the round barrows, over the hawthorn screen.

Image credit: A. Brookes (29.12.2016)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jan 5, 2017
Image of Cow Common (Barrow / Cairn Cemetery) by thesweetcheat

It proved difficult to get any decent shots of the round barrow group at the west end of the site, as the landowner has placed a fence tightly around the perimeter and then planted dense hawthorn inside it.

Image credit: A. Brookes (29.12.2016)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jan 5, 2017

Articles

Cow Common

C
CARL Aug 15, 2011

Visited 13.8.11

I parked on the minor road to the south and walked up the bank and onto the edge of the field where the Long Barrow lies. Unfortunately the field was still full of crop (wheat) and as I didn’t want to cause any crop damage I viewed from afar.
All I could see was the raised hump of the Long Barrow which was covered in scraggy long grass.

A short distance to the west of the Long Barrow are two Round Barrows (marked on O/S map – SP132263).
I had the same problem regarding the crops, so again I viewed from the edge of the field. The two Barrows were easy enough to spot, covered in trees and bushes.

A post harvest visit is definitely required!

Cow Common

baza
baza Aug 3, 2003

Cow Common Long Barrow GPS: SP 13511 26272

Not much of interest to say about this long barrow. It lies like an island in the middle of a large arable field next to a minor road just over 2 miles west of Lower Swell. I walked up the tractor tracks in a field of wheat to reach it. No megaliths are exposed.
On my way back to the road, I startled a deer hiding in the wheat, which didn`t bound very far away. Shortly afterwards, I was startled by a fawn jumping out of the crop in front of me.

Miscellaneous

Cow Common
Barrow / Cairn Cemetery
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Nov 11, 2003

Just to add some more detail – The longbarrow at Cow Common is (rather interestingly?) made of small stones, and it is oriented east-west, with views to south and east. It was your typical Cotswold Severn longbarrow design, with a false entrance in a forecourt flanked by extensions of the mound. The mound was surrounded by a dry stone wall. It had two actual chambers: the NE chamber had remains of 3 skeletons, with five more just outside. The second chamber 10m from the eastern end contained two adults and one infant, and two flint flakes. James Dyer’s ‘Southern Britain’ mentions some Neolithic pottery spoons too (surely very unusual?). One of the chambers was oval with a carefully corbelled roof. A Roman coin was also found at the western end of the longbarrow – was it just lost, or deliberately buried for some reason?


The area was reused later, or perhaps in constant use, as the longbarrow became surrounded by the ten round barrows in the barrow cemetery. Five form an overlapping row to the west and were opened in 1874. The most southerly had a cist burial and two urn burials. The second had a beehive-shaped chamber inside, approached by a long 6m passage – other corbelled chambers are known from this area of Gloucestershire so perhaps it was a local burial ‘fashion’ for a while? The other three barrows in the row held cremations that seem to have been interred in cloths, secured with bone pins.

(info from Dyer’s book above, and the MAGIC website)

Sites within 20km of Cow Common

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