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<< Our Photo Pages >> Oakley Down Barrows - Barrow Cemetery in England in Dorset

Submitted by JimChampion on Monday, 07 October 2002  Page Views: 15396

Neolithic and Bronze AgeSite Name: Oakley Down Barrows
Country: England County: Dorset Type: Barrow Cemetery
Nearest Town: Blandford Forum  Nearest Village: Sixpenny Handley
Map Ref: SU01821731  Landranger Map Number: 184
Latitude: 50.955217N  Longitude: 1.975461W
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
 4 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 4 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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SumDoood would like to visit

XIII saw from a distance on 12th Aug 2015 - their rating: Amb: 3 Access: 4

graemefield visited on 23rd Mar 2014 - their rating: Cond: 4 Amb: 4 Access: 4

paulinelen visited on 9th Jun 2013 - their rating: Cond: 4 Amb: 4 couldn't see any access point - there is a locked gate and sheep in the field

h_fenton JimChampion mdensham have visited here

Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 4 Ambience: 3.67 Access: 4

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by h_fenton : Part of Oakley Down Barrow Cemetery. Kite Aerial Photograph 29 August 2010 @ 7.07pm (Vote or comment on this photo)
A barrow cemetery of at least 29 barrows in Dorset.

Extremely visible as you drive by on the A354 road between the B3081 roundabout and the section that follows the Roman Road (south of Woodyates). Not a linear barrow cemetery, several different types of round barrow are present.

Described as the finest group of round barrows on Cranborne Chase.
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Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by h_fenton : Part of Oakley Down Barrow Cemetery. Kite Aerial Photograph 29 August 2010 @ 7.08pm (1 comment - Vote or comment on this photo)

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by Bladup : Oakley Down Barrows lidar image Source: www.lidarfinder.com (Vote or comment on this photo)

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by paulinelen : The larger barrow nearest the road. Beautiful surrounded by meadow flowers. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by Bladup : The wide bank of the middle disc barrow with some round barrows in the background, Because of the heavy rain I'm surprised you can see anything (Vote or comment on this photo)

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by Bladup : The ditch of the middle disc barrow with the largest round barrow in the background

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by Bladup : The middle Disc Barrow from the nearest round barrow in sideways rain

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by Bladup : The bank of the middle disc barrow and a round barrow in heavy rain

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by Bladup : Double bank at the middle of the Eastern Disc barrows

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by Bladup : Looking over the bank and ditch of a Eastern disc barrow towards the largest round barrow at the site

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by Bladup : The Large disc barrow at the East, In the foreground you can see how Ackling dyke roman road cut though the site

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by Bladup : The hard to see Disc barrow in the trees at the South East and to the East of Ackling dyke roman road

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by Bladup : Round barrow to the South East of the barrowfield

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by Bladup : The Northern Disc Barrow on a very wet day

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by paulinelen : Would love to have gone into the field but not up to climbing over gates these days.

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by paulinelen : Taken from the car.

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by JimChampion : Composite image of the disc barrow at grid reference SU01911715, from two photos. The agger of the Ackling Dyke Roman road cuts across the south-east side of the barrow, overlying its outer bank (in the foreground).

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by JimChampion : View north towards the barrow cemetery on the horizon from the Ackling Dyke agger. New fence and gates have been installed in the foreground, either side of the Roman Road.

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by JimChampion : Composite image, from two photographs, of the disc barrow at grid reference SU01771712 - viewed from the top of the large bell barrow mound immediately to the west.

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by JimChampion : View towards the large bell barrow at grid reference SU01721713, from the Ackling Dyke to the south.

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by formicaant : A large oval disc barrow which has had its western edge cut by the roman Ackling dyke. This is also double tumped.

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by formicaant : A huge disc barrow with two small mounds from the top of the large bell barrow.

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by JimChampion : April 2005. A view NW from the Ackling Dyke with round barrows in the Oakley Down cemetery in the foreground and the remains of the Wor long barrow on the horizon (left of the tall round barrow). When the Romans built the Ackling Dyke they drove it straight through the cemetery, over the top of two disc barrows.

Oakley Down Barrows
Oakley Down Barrows submitted by JimChampion : April 2005. Looking north at four of the bowl barrows in the Oakley Down cemetery from the Ackling Dyke bridleway. These barrows are aligned along an east-west axis from SU016170 to SU018170 at the south of the cemetery. They were excavated by Sir Richard Hoare (an antiquarian in search of antiquaries) in 1803 and yielded cremations.

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 579m W 268° Wor Barrow* Long Barrow (SU01241729)
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"Oakley Down Barrows" | Login/Create an Account | 5 News and Comments
  
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Stourhead and Sir Richard Colt Hoare’s Archaeologists by Andy B on Thursday, 06 July 2017
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Martin Papworth writes about Sir Richard Colt Hoare’s book ‘Ancient Wiltshire’, begun in 1810 too late for his friend William Cunnington who had died a few months earlier. Richard laments the loss of his friend and fellow time traveller. The introduction and the conclusion to volume two ‘North Wiltshire’, written in 1821, states clearly these volumes would never have been possible without William’s inspiration.

As I turned the pages in that little room…written just a few feet from where I stood…it was the illustrations that particularly amazed me. At the bottom left of each .. was the name P. Crocker.

He was the other key individual in the archaeology team. Philip learnt his mapping skills from the newly formed Ordnance Survey. Was it William or Richard who first engaged him to make plans of the archaeological sites they were discovering?

Philip mapped and numbered groups of burial mounds and marked the routes of Roman Roads. His art included landscapes paintings, reconstruction drawings of monuments, most notably his drawings of Stonehenge and Avebury, and he also drew the artefacts discovered during the barrow excavations.

‘Ancient Wiltshire’ grapples with the problem of understanding the chronology of British prehistory at a time when there were no dating techniques. William and Richard noted the way roads and earthworks altered their course or cut or avoided one another demonstrating a sequence of events. They noted different types of finds and that burials with iron were always found above burials with bronze.. though they did not coin the terms Iron Age and Bronze Age. The Danish archaeologist Thomsen did that in 1836.

There are discovery stories in ‘Ancient Wiltshire’. Colt Hoare aimed for scientific enquiry though this was the time of gothic romance. The excavation of the Bush Barrow in 1808 within the Normanton Group of barrows south of Stonehenge is of particular significance. Here, Cunnington and the Parkers recorded the golden, bronze and stone grave goods surrounding the burial of an important man but it is the account of another excavation which captures the mood of the time.

This excavation was just across the border in Dorset. Here, a large barrow group was drawn by Crocker cut across by the later Ackling Dyke Roman Road. Digging into the large mound ‘9’ of the Oakley Down barrows they found a burial near the surface but below this a heap of flints. Sir Richard rightly surmised that the primary inhumation lay deeper.

They began to shift the rocks and a thunderstorm broke out across the exposed downland. Swept with intense rain, the team clustered for shelter in the burial pit leaving their iron tools on the mound summit above them. A clap of thunder and the tools drew a direct hit by a lightning bolt that sent a landslide of debris down upon them forcing them out into the storm. One of Sir Richard’s companions Rev William Bowles was so moved by the experience that he wrote a poem which is included in the book. It captures the romance of the time reminiscent of contemporary novels such as Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey.

More at:
https://archaeologynationaltrustsw.wordpress.com/2017/05/30/stourhead-and-sir-richards-archaeologists/
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Street View by coldrum on Friday, 26 March 2010
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Re: Oakley Down Barrows by coldrum on Monday, 10 August 2009
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Pastscape entry:

http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=1312394
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Re: Oakley Down Barrows by JimChampion on Sunday, 20 January 2008
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Sir Richard Colt Hoare and William Cunnington excavated many of the barrows in the Oakley Down group. Their findings are described in Chapter 11 of "The Ancient History of Wiltshire, Vol. 1", by Sir Richard Colt Hoare (published 1812). The scanned text, including illustrations, is available here on the Wiltshire County Council website.
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