Monument record BTM 004 - Beacon Hill, Chalk Hill Round Barrow (BA)

Group of round barrows. Previously four barrows in a line ESE-NNW, two to the W and two to the E of the road, of which the northernmost of the E pair was excavated by Canon Greenwell in 1868 - he found a primary contracted inhumation with plain pottery sherds, flint flakes and scrapers surrounded by a 2 feet high bank of clunch, and a secondary cremation and two inhumations without grave goods. This barrow was 96 feet N-S by 78 feet E-W by 3 feet 9 inches high (S1)(S8).
In 1923 one barrow only survived, on the W of the road, known as Beacon Hill. This barrow, 54 feet diameter and about 8 feet high was excavated by Earl Cawdor and C Fox; it was constructed of sand, containing flint flakes, cores, pot boilers, pottery sherds, animal bones and charcoal with a layer of chalky boulder clay over it. Three contracted inhumations and eleven cremations were found in the clay layer, with three pots. Two bone pins and a bone necklace (spacer beads) were found with the cremations (S1)(S10). Following the 1923 excavation the mound was rebuilt 5 yards NW of its original position (S12). Description of this rebuilt mound, which is Scheduled, in (S1)(S2)(S3)(S4).
An East Anglian type beaker in Colchester Museum is from 'Barton Hill, Mildenhall' (S7). An S3 (E) type beaker in Cambridge Museum, (1897.181) provenanced as Curdle Head, Eriswell, is said (in a manuscript note in the museum,) to be from Barton Hill (S7), as is a flint dagger (S6). A bronze pin, awl or tracer, `much decayed', 4 inches long was found with two flint implements, 3 flakes and half a flint disc with cremation C5 by Cawdor & Fox in the 1923 excavations (S5)(S9)(S10).