This is a paired monument in Graffridge Wood, Hertfordshire, comprising a Bronze Age bowl barrow and an adjacent Roman barrow, the latter likely constructed in the late 1st or 2nd century AD. Roman barrows of this type are a distinctive feature of the Chilterns and the Catuvellaunian territory, marking the burial places of wealthy rural individuals, probably members of the Romano-British landed elite associated with nearby villa estates.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The reuse or augmentation of a prehistoric barrow cemetery with a Roman tumulus reflects a deliberate appropriation of an ancestral landscape, a pattern seen elsewhere in southeast England (notably at the Bartlow Hills and Stevenage Six Hills). Such barrows signal the persistence of native burial traditions among the local aristocracy well after the conquest, blending indigenous practice with Roman material culture.
The Graffridge Wood barrows survive as earthwork mounds within woodland, and the Roman example is identified largely by morphology — typically a steep-sided conical mound with a surrounding ditch — rather than by recorded excavation. No detailed excavation results are published for this particular site, and its dating rests on analogy with the better-known Hertfordshire Roman barrow group rather than recovered grave goods.
This is a paired monument in Graffridge Wood, Hertfordshire, comprising a Bronze Age bowl barrow and an adjacent Roman barrow, the latter likely constructed in the late 1st or 2nd century AD. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a site site from the Roman period in Britain.
Roman barrow and Bronze Age bowl barrow in Graffridge Wood, 250m east of Wintergreen Cottages is classified as a Roman site — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including The Six Hills Roman barrows (3.3 km), Lockleys (4.8 km), Lockleys Roman villa (5.2 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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Research the area around Roman barrow and Bronze Age bowl barrow in Graffridge Wood, 250m east of Wintergreen Cottages