Pipton Long Barrow

Cadw's description

Summary description and reason for designation

The following provides a general description of the Scheduled Ancient Monument.

The monument consists of the remains of a chambered long cairn, dating to early Neolithic (c. 4,200BC - 3,000BC). A long cairn is a roughly rectangular or trapezoidal mound of stone, usually between 25m and 120m long, with a length exceeding twice its greatest width. The mound may be edged with a timber or stone revetment, and they contain one or more stone or wooden burial chambers at one end. The remains of the monument comprise an oval mound 30m long, 18m wide at the NE end and 8m wide at the SW end. There are no traces of chambers although two uprights slabs protrude through the grass at the E end. The site was excavated by H.N. Savory in 1950 who found it to be a well-preserved example of a laterally chambered Cotswold-Severn tomb. It was revealed as wedge-shaped in plan with horns at the N end enclosing a forecourt and a dummy portal. Within the cairn were two main chambers, one approached along a passage from the west side, and one enclosed within the cairn in the form of a cist. The cist chamber contained the remains of 5 individuals.

The monument is of national importance for its potential to enhance our knowledge of prehistoric burial and ritual. The monument is an important relic of a prehistoric funerary and ritual landscape and retains significant archaeological potential, with a strong probability of the presence of both intact burial or ritual deposits and environmental and structural evidence, including a buried prehistoric land surface. Long barrows may be part of a larger cluster of monuments and their importance can further enhanced by their group value.

The scheduled area comprises the remains described and areas around them within which related evidence may be expected to survive.