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<< Our Photo Pages >> Wor Barrow - Long Barrow in England in Dorset

Submitted by JimChampion on Thursday, 12 January 2017  Page Views: 17035

Neolithic and Bronze AgeSite Name: Wor Barrow
Country: England County: Dorset Type: Long Barrow
Nearest Town: Blandford Forum  Nearest Village: Deanland
Map Ref: SU01241729  Landranger Map Number: 184
Latitude: 50.955039N  Longitude: 1.983719W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 2 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 3 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 4 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 5

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Wor Barrow
Wor Barrow submitted by dodomad : Excavation of the ditch at Wor Barrow, where Burial 8 was found Photo Credit: Historic England Archive (Vote or comment on this photo)
Long Barrow in Dorset, seemingly the first scientifically excavated long barrow. The barrow was totally excavated in 1893-4 by General Pitt-Rivers in one of the earliest systematic archaeological digs. The barrow was oval in shape with completely surrounding ditches, 45m long and 23m wide and 6m high, aligned along a NE-SW axis.

Pitt-Rivers kept meticulous records of the excavation and interpretation of these suggests that the barrow was built in two distinct phases. Phase 1 was a wooden stockade structure with a slight ditch, and during phase 2 the ditch was made much deeper with the spoil used to build the mound in the enclosed area. The remains of at least 6 male bodies were uncovered within a mortuary chamber made of turves beneath the mound.

Pitt-Rivers did not restore the barrow after the excavation; instead he had the spoil banked up around the outside of the excavated ditch with the intention of providing an amphitheatre for entertainments for the benefit of his estate workers (who carried out the excavations). To us now this might seem strange, but his systematic approach and meticulous record-keeping meant that the information about the barrow was not lost even if the mound itself was. Pitt-Rivers also studied the silting of the excavated ditches over the subsequent years and concluded that this was not a suitable method for dating such earthworks: this is one of the earliest instances of experimental archaeology. He also learned (the hard way) that excavating at a vertical face was not as careful a method as excavating layer by layer.

Access The Wor barrow site (the excavated ditches, empty enclosed region and surrounding banked spoil) are found in the NE corner of a field to the north of the A354/B3081 roundabout. A bridleway from this roundabout passes along the edge of this field, then on to a lane on the NE corner of Sixpenny Handley. It is possible to park safely in Sixpenny Handley, but there is no signage so take a decent map.

Note: Britain’s Earliest Mummy and the People of Wor Barrow, see the most recent comment on our page
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Wor Barrow
Wor Barrow submitted by JimChampion : Composite view of the Wor Barrow site, looking NW with the SE causeway in the foreground. The pioneering excavation by General Pitt-Rivers in 1893-4 exposed the ditches and completely destroyed the earth mound, leaving this empty central area. The spoil is banked up outside the ditch, mainly on the left of this photo. The entrance to the barrow's mortuary chamber was at this south-eastern end, alt... (Vote or comment on this photo)

Wor Barrow
Wor Barrow submitted by JimChampion : Looking south at the remains of Wor Barrow. The barrow mound once stood on the flat area enclosed by the excavated ditch, which curves around both ends. The spoil from the 1893-4 excavation has been banked around the ditch, highest (and terraced) on the right of this picture. Across the field to the left, on the other side of the A354 road, is the Bronze Age Oakley Down barrow cemetery. The Wor Ba... (Vote or comment on this photo)

Wor Barrow
Wor Barrow submitted by JimChampion : Looking directly east from the highest point on Oakley Down, on the approach to Wor barrow. From here the earthworks appear to be a very even bank barrow about 50m, but what you see is not the original neolithic long barrow! It is in fact the banked spoil from the destructive excavation of the site in 1893 by General Pitt-Rivers: he intended the site to be used as an amphitheatre for entertainment... (Vote or comment on this photo)

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Nearby Images from Geograph Britain and Ireland:
SU0117 : Wor Barrow (long barrow) and hedgerow by Simon Barnes
by Simon Barnes
©2007(licence)
SU0117 : Oakley Down late afternoon early spring by Simon Barnes
by Simon Barnes
©2007(licence)
SU0117 : Lone tree & wheat, Handley Down. by Simon Barnes
by Simon Barnes
©2007(licence)
SU0117 : First growth of cereal crop by Simon Barnes
by Simon Barnes
©2007(licence)
SU0117 : Winter Barley Sixpenny Handley by Simon Barnes
by Simon Barnes
©2007(licence)

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 579m E 88° Oakley Down Barrows* Barrow Cemetery (SU01821731)
 1.0km S 172° Bottlebush Down barrows* Barrow Cemetery (SU01381625)
 1.3km ESE 107° Pentridge 4* Long Barrow (SU025169)
 1.4km SSE 158° Dorset Cursus* Cursus (SU01751600)
 1.7km S 171° Gussage St Michael Cursus Cursus (SU015156)
 1.7km S 171° Pentridge Cursus Cursus (SU015156)
 2.1km SSW 198° Wyke Down henge* Henge (SU006153)
 2.1km S 189° Wyke Down barrows* Round Barrow(s) (SU009152)
 2.6km S 176° Drive Plantation* Long Barrow (SU014147)
 2.6km N 0° Bokerley Dyke Misc. Earthwork (SU01241990)
 2.7km E 94° Penbury Knoll* Hillfort (SU039171)
 2.7km NW 323° Mistlebury* Hillfort (ST99581948)
 2.8km NE 53° Bokerley Dyke* Misc. Earthwork (SU035190)
 3.3km ENE 63° Pentridge 1* Long Barrow (SU04151877)
 3.4km NE 55° Pentridge Cursus Cursus (SU040192)
 3.4km ENE 58° Pentridge 2* Long Barrow (SU04111907)
 3.5km NE 50° Pentridge 3* Long Barrow (SU039195)
 3.6km S 179° Monkton-up-Wimborne Late Neolithic pit circle/shaft complex* Misc. Earthwork (SU01311367)
 3.8km NE 36° Vernditch Chase (South)* Long Barrow (SU035204)
 4.0km SW 214° Gussage Hill Ancient Village or Settlement (ST990140)
 4.0km SSW 209° Gussage Down (North)* Long Barrow (ST993138)
 4.1km W 278° Scrubbity Barrows* Barrow Cemetery (ST97201789)
 4.1km NE 48° Martin Down Enclosure* Ancient Village or Settlement (SU043200)
 4.1km SSW 206° Gussage Down (South)* Long Barrow (ST994136)
 4.2km E 79° Blagdon Hill tumuli* Round Barrow(s) (SU054181)
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"Wor Barrow" | Login/Create an Account | 3 News and Comments
  
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Re: Street View by Zooks777 on Thursday, 19 August 2021
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On Environment Agency lidar (grey icon next to CamRA) this is clear but has obviously been resculpted by Pitt-Rivers to become a mere 'entertainment'
[ Reply to This ]

Britain’s Earliest Mummy and the People of Wor Barrow by Andy B on Thursday, 12 January 2017
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Peter Marshall, Historic England’s Scientific Dating Coordinator and Jonathan Last, their Landscape Strategy Manager, go through new findings from an extraordinary long barrow excavated over a century ago.

Long barrows are the burial places of Britain’s early farming communities and are the oldest monuments surviving in our landscape. These earthen mounds acted as funeral monuments during the Early Neolithic (3700-3500 BC) and reveal much about the communities buried within them.

Wor Barrow lies within Cranborne Chase in Dorset, an area renowned for its prehistoric archaeology. It was investigated by the ‘father of scientific archaeology’, General Pitt Rivers, during 1893 and 1894 and became the first Neolithic long barrow to be completely excavated and recorded to ‘modern’ standards.

Over 120 years later, the archaeological finds and field notebooks, now housed in Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, are still being studied, and yielding new insights.
Human Remains

In 2007, a number of southern British long barrows were redated using new techniques, changing our view of how these monuments were used.schematic-plan-of-the-primary-burials-at-wor-barrow-drawn-from-pitt-rivers-photographs

Rather than burials taking place over a long period, radiocarbon dating found that these long barrows were used for burial of the dead only during a limited period of time in the late 38th and 37th centuries BC (c 5750–5600 years ago).

This raised questions about Wor Barrow, which was built differently from the other long barrows and had long been considered as rather later in date. To see how Wor Barrow related to these sites, the artefacts and field notes from Pitt Rivers’ excavations were reanalysed.

The results from the Wor Barrow analysis showed that six people were buried in a wooden box set within a mortuary structure. After this a turf mound was built over the box containing the human remains, substantial ditches were cut with antler picks, and the excavated chalk used to construct a mound over the entire mortuary structure, creating the barrow.

The human remains were dated and found to have been buried in the 37th century BC, placing Wor Barrow in a broadly similar time frame to the other long barrows in southern England. This demonstrated that different forms of funerary monuments were being constructed at the same time in the Early Neolithic period. Rather than conforming to a blueprint, each barrow was the result of choices made by local communities.
Britain’s Earliest Mummy

After Wor Barrow had been constructed, another individual (referred to as ‘Burial 8’) was buried in the ditch. The body had been tightly wrapped and preserved for between 30 and 130 years before it was deposited in the barrow, making it the earliest known ‘mummy’ in Britain. It is unclear what, if anything, was special about this person, although they probably met a violent death as a flint arrowhead was found between their ribs.
bb81_03122.tif

Read More at
https://heritagecalling.com/2017/01/12/britains-earliest-mummy-and-the-people-of-wor-barrow/
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Street View by coldrum on Friday, 26 March 2010
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