The Ponton Heath Barrow Cemetery is a group of at least eleven Middle Bronze Age

round barrow A round barrow is a type of tumulus and is one of the most common types of archaeological monuments. Although concentrated in Europe, they are found in many parts of the world, probably because of their simple construction and universal purpose. ...

s south of Grantham, in the

South Kesteven South Kesteven is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in Lincolnshire, England, forming part of the traditional Kesteven division of the county. It covers Bourne, Lincolnshire, Bourne, Grantham, Market Deeping and Stamford, Li ...

district of Lincolnshire, England. Five of the barrows were destroyed by ironstone quarrying in 1959; the remaining six are scheduled monuments. The sites have been placed on the Heritage at Risk Register.

Location

The cemetery is located on Ponton Heath, an area of high ground several miles south of the market town of Grantham. It is centred approximately northeast of the hamlet of

Hungerton __NOTOC__ Wyville is a village in the civil parish of Wyville cum Hungerton, in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, and situated approximately south-west from Grantham The whole parish covers about . The population is incl ...

and southwest of the village of

Stroxton Stroxton () is a village in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated south from the centre of Grantham and about north-west from Great Ponton and the A1 road. At one time Stroxton was a civil parish but in 1931 the ...

. The centre of the area is occupied by the backfilled remains of an ironstone quarry which was active from the 1950s to the 1970s; this activity was responsible for the destruction of five barrows in 1959. Of the surviving monuments, Barrow A is located to the north of the former works, on the parish boundary between Wyville cum Hungerton and

Little Ponton and Stroxton Little Ponton and Stroxton is a civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. According to the 2001 Census it had a population of 135 across 62 homes, increasing to 235 at the 2011 census. The civil parish contains the vi ...

. The remaining five, Barrows B, C, F, G and H, are located on the south side of the site. A low mound, possibly a 12th barrow, is located between and slightly to the north of Barrows C and F.

Description

The surviving barrows are all located on arable farmland which is ploughed and under crop. They are only visible as slight ridges in the ground no more than high. Due to the danger of them being ploughed out, the sites have been placed on the Heritage at Risk Register.

Excavations and investigations

In 1959, following the opening of Harlaxton Quarry No. 4 (or Hungerton Quarry), a

rescue excavation Rescue archaeology, sometimes called commercial archaeology, preventive archaeology, salvage archaeology, contract archaeology, developer-funded archaeology or compliance archaeology, is state-sanctioned, archaeological survey and excavation car ...

was carried out by Ernest Greenfield of the Ministry of Works. He arrived to find much of the topsoil already stripped from the site and several of the barrows pillaged. In Barrow J he found an intact main burial chamber containing a crushed red collared urn, decorated with cord impressions, inverted over burned bone. He also found numerous secondary cremations and

stone tool A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric (particularly Stone Ag ...

s, leading him to classify the builders as the " Yorkshire Food Vessel Culture" in the terminology of the time. The site also contained evidence of later Romano-British occupation. Examination of topsoil removed from the destroyed portion of the site yielded fragments of Roman Samian and grey ware pottery. The urn from Barrow J was conveyed to the Lincoln Museum; other artifacts were deposited with the

Grantham Museum Grantham Museum is located at St Peter's Hill, Grantham, Lincolnshire, England, in the building provided for it in 1926. The building also housed the public library, and was partly funded by the Carnegie UK Trust which was continuing Andrew Carn ...

Fieldwalking In archaeology, survey or field survey is a type of field research by which archaeologists (often landscape archaeologists) search for archaeological sites and collect information about the location, distribution and organization of past human c ...

of the area west of Barrow A in the 1960s and 70s also turned up a large scatter of

s, and a child's bronze bracelet dated to the Roman era.

List of barrows

Notes

References

{{reflist, 2 Archaeological sites in Lincolnshire History of Lincolnshire Scheduled monuments in Lincolnshire Bronze Age sites in Lincolnshire Buildings and structures in Lincolnshire