Monument record MDR7058 - Willington, 'Barrow 1'

Cropmarks showing ring ditches and barrows identified from aerial photographs. (1-3) Cropmarks plotted at a scale of 1:10000. (4) In 1970 investigations by TVARC of barrow 1 commenced when the eastern half had already been lost to quarrying. The barrow was enclosed by a circular ditch 36m in diameter, an average width of 1.3m and depth of 1.m. In profile this was quite regular, and filled with brown loam. One flint flake was found. Later features, a possible Romano-British corn drier and an Iron Age ditch, cut the barrow ditch. A berm between the inner edge of the ditch and the central mound was identified, 8-9m wide. Within this were four small pits and the butt end of a ditch. One of the small pits, cut by the ditch, contained sherds of handmade pottery. The central mound consisted of piled turves under which was what appeared to be the original ground surface. Pottery from within the mound and the buried ground surface was late Neolithic, mainly Beaker Wares, with one sherd of Grooved Ware. A flint assemblage also recovered fitted in with the chronology indicated by the pottery. Where the centre of the mound would have been were two pits in the original ground surface. The acidity meant that no bones survived, but it was believed there were burials here. (5)