Kit’s Coty House, located in an elevated position just
below the chalk escarpment, is a tall sarsen-built
chamber consisting of three orthostats in an H-shaped
arrangement with a pitched capstone. This is situated at
the east end of a plough-truncated long mound some
85m in length. Although this monument is widely
assumed to be the much-disturbed remnant of a Severn
Cotswold-style chambered tomb, the closest parallels
for the chamber are portal dolmens and related
monuments in western Britain.
The full scale and overall character of the monument
have been revealed through geophysical surveys and
excavations carried out since 2009. It is now clear that
the chamber is not positioned on the central axis of the
mound but is offset to the south, possibly representing
part of a pre-long mound structure. The long barrow
itself was built in at least two stages from east to west,
but there are also indications of a more complex series
of construction episodes including possible internal
stone settings positioned symmetrically in relation to the
ditches. The eastern primary phase of the south ditch,
dug in two phases in quick succession, forms a wide
terrace in the hill slope, while its counterpart to the
north is a wide shallow feature with gently-sloping
sides.
Together, these delineate a ‘short’ long barrow
which may have subsumed or elaborated the original
megalithic monument. Whether contemporary with the
chamber or not, the shallowness of the flanking ditches,
the lack of evidence for a revetment and the narrowness
of the internal area suggest the presence of a low mound
that is unlikely to have covered the chamber. A buried
soil (sampled by Mike Allen) and fragments of chalk
mound survive on the north side whereas the south side
is completely truncated by ploughing.
Source: prehistoricsociety.org/sites/prehistoricsociety.org/files/publications/past/past72.pdf
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