Churchill; The Mount (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Churchill.
In the historic county of Oxfordshire.
Modern Authority of Oxfordshire.
1974 county of Oxfordshire.
Medieval County of Oxfordshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SP27922371
Latitude 51.91123° Longitude -1.59551°

Churchill; The Mount has been described as a Timber Castle but is rejected as such.

There are earthwork remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

Small rounded mound, sometimes identified as a motte. Rejected by King as appearing to be a barrow. Recorded in PastScape as "Bowl barrow, probably landscaped" The Oxfordshire HER writes is classified as an Anglo-Saxon hlaew.

The Mount bell barrow is a well preserved example of its class and will contain undisturbed archaeological and environmental evidence relating to its construction and the landscape in which it was built.
The monument includes a well preserved Bronze Age bell barrow known as 'The Mount', 110m south west of Mount Farm. It is situated on a ridge running from north east to south west with views to the east, south and west. The barrow mound measures 22m in diameter and stands up to 2.2m high. A level 2m wide berm around the base of the mound is surrounded by a quarry ditch from which material was obtained during construction of the monument. This ditch has become partially infilled over the years but remains visible at ground level as a shallow depression 4m wide and c.0.4m deep. Beyond the ditch, there are traces of an outer bank which survives up to 1m wide and 0.1m high. (Scheduling Report)

Round barrow - large mound, no sign of bailey and unlikely to be a motte. Might be a Saxon barrow of Asthall. It has a fine surrounding ditch, a conical top, and there is a trace of revetment at base of slope. All these signs might be due to C18th reworking of mound. (VCH)
This is a fine, undamaged bowl barrow, 22m in diameter and 2.2m high surrounded by a ditch, 505m wide and 0.7m deep. There is a strong possibility that the present conical appearance of the mound is due to an early C19 landscaping when it was first planted with conifers; it is now ringed at base with 50 year old conifers. (OS Record)
Classified as AS hlaew for MPP; NOT scored as bell barrow because of other identification. (Oxfordshire HER)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1009413, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number 21809
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 332619.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 3180.

Books
- King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 388 (reject)
  Potts, W., 1907, in Page, Wm (ed), 'Ancient Earthworks' VCH Oxfordshire Vol. 2 p. 345 (as round barrow) online transcription

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The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

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