Asthall barrow

[5][7] Once covered in trees including beeches and firs, likely planted in the nineteenth century,[5][7] the barrow is now topped by a single, prominent, sycamore; the remaining growth was removed during conservation work in 2017 or 2018.

[5] Slippage of the barrow's soil may also help explain the changed dimensions, and the recorded reduction in height over time.

[5] The barrow was excavated in August 1923, and again in 1924, by George Bowles, the brother in law of the second Baron Redesdale, who owned the land.

[7][5] He labeled the corners A–H on his plot, omitting the F.[17][18] Bowles determined the barrow to be undisturbed and to consist of earth mixed with stones, along with the occasional sherd of Romano–British pottery.

[7][5][note 1] The surface level was coated in yellowish clay, perhaps brought up from the River Windrush nearby.

[23] Atop the clay Bowles found an abundance of charcoal and ashes, six inches thick in places (such as at point V on his plot), and forming only a thin covering elsewhere.

[2] Historic England, which maintains the list of such monuments, noted that the barrow "is one of the best preserved examples of a type of burial mound of which there are about ten examples in West Oxfordshire", and that "[d]espite partial excavation and recent animal burrowing it will contain archaeological and environmental evidence relating to its construction and the landscape in which it was built.

"[2] Historic England added that the "survival of part of its original drystone retaining wall is an unusual feature", but that regardless, "[a]s a rare monument class all positively identified examples are considered worthy of preservation.

[53][54] From 2009 to 2014, its condition was described as "declining" with "generally unsatisfactory with major localised problems," and its principal vulnerability was given as scrub and tree growth.