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Summary

Scheduled Neolithic earthen long barrow on Inkpen Hill, named due to the wooden post erected on it in the 17th century

Associated Legal Designations or Protected Status

• Scheduled Monument 1013198: LONG BARROW AT COMBE GIBBET, GALLOWS DOWN

Other Statuses and Cross-References

• Berkshire SMR No. (pre 2000): 01054.01.000
  
• National Monuments Record No.: SU 36 SE 1
  SU 3647 6224

Monument Type(s):

• LONG BARROW (Early Neolithic - 4000 BC to 3001 BC)

Full Description

The barrow was scheduled in 1924, and the scheduling revised in 1990.

Scheduling description: "The monument includes a long barrow on Gallows Down, 2km south of Inkpen. The barrow is orientated east-west with flanking ditches clearly visible to the north and south. The mound survives to a length of c.65m and a width of 20m. It is higher to the eastern end where it survives to a height of 1.5m. Elsewhere the mound averages between 0.5m and 1m. The ditches survive running the full length of the mound to a width of 7m. The ditch is separated from the mound by a narrow berm, varying in width between 3 and 7m. Both ditches survive to a depth of 0.5m. No records of excavation or burial survive. Situated on the mound, 25m from the east end, is Combe Gibbet. This survives as a replacement for the original gallows and stands 4m in height with a biased crossbar. The Gibbet structure is excluded from the scheduling." <1>

Heywood Sumner seems to have been the first archaeologist to take note of the monuments, drawing them in 1915; Williams Freeman briefly mentions a long barrow a quarter of a mile west of Walbury Camp <2>. Grinsell visited Combe Gibbet in 1934 as part of his barrows survey, and described it as "a very fine example of earthern long barrow, 65 paces long and about 25 paces wide at the eastern and broader end" <4>. The barrow has never been excavated, although monitoring was carried out when a replacement gibbet was installed <5>. A simple earthwork survey was carried out in connection with a student study in 1999 <7a>, followed with some further research <7b>.

The earthwork remains of the barrow were plotted by the Berkshire National Mapping Programme <11> from aerial photographs <12>.

Although the scheduled monument description refers to 'gallows', there is no evidence that the original wooden post on the barrow was ever used as anything other than as a gibbet, and this only one on occasion.

Sources and further reading

Related Monuments

Associated Excavations and Fieldwork

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