Cursus Barrows

[4] The north and eastern parts of the barrow mound were damaged by the construction of a turnpike road in the 18th century.

[4] Amesbury 44 (grid reference SU11974278) comprises two barrow mounds which are completely surrounded by a single ring ditch.

[3] Amesbury 45 (grid reference SU11864278) is a large ditched bell barrow which still stands 3.5 metres high.

[6] The mound was excavated by Colt Hoare in the early 19th century, who found a cremation close to a cist of black ashes with a few pieces of burnt bone.

[9] Amesbury 46 was excavated by Colt Hoare who recovered burned bones with a small spear head.

[14][15] The barrow comprises a central oval mound flanked by two asymmetric side ditches which have opposing entrances to the south-west and north-east.

There was also evidence for a ring of 24 one-metre wide pits around the inside edge of the ditch which may have supported a freestanding wooden structure.

The two opposing entrances across the ditch, in the south-west and north-east, suggest a similar alignment as Stonehenge.

[20][21] Amesbury 51 is a reconstructed bell or bowl barrow with an overall diameter of approximately 36 metres (grid reference SU11434272).

[23] It was excavated again in 1960 and finds included decayed leather, and a burial lying beneath a tapered board and accompanied by a long-necked beaker and various implements.

[30][31] It is possibly a disc barrow, but the site must have been flattened by the early 19th century (since it was not recorded), and at a later date it was planted with trees.

[32] Excavations in 1938 revealed a small oval ditch with an external bank broken by causeways on the north and south.

[33] The Monarch of the Plain is a very large Bronze Age bell barrow on the western edge of the Fargo plantation (grid reference SU11084276).

[37] It was excavated by Colt Hoare who found burials and grave goods, including a bronze dagger.

[39][40][41] They were both excavated by Colt Hoare, who found a handled bronze awl and a collared urn in Winterbourne Stoke 28.

Amesbury 45 (background), and Amesbury 46 and 47 (foreground)
Amesbury 54 is within the Fargo plantation
Amesbury 55. The Monarch of the Plain
Amesbury 56 sits at the western end of the Cursus