Monument record 0062700000 - BLEDLOW COP, WAIN HILL

Dimensions - Radius 9m, Height 2m.
Plan Form - CIRCULAR
BOWL BARROW, NO DITCH, ERECTED EBA, OVER CENTRAL INHUMATION. SUBSEQUENTLY USED FOR 2 LBA CREMATIONS & OTHER RITUAL PITS WITH ANIMAL BONE, & 2 INHUMATIONS & 5-6 CREMATIONS OF EARLY-MID SAXON PERIOD. CENTRAL PART OF BARROW REMOVED C17 & REDEPOSITED, INCLUDING PRIMARY BURIAL (B1-6).
WAS BARROW, IN FACT, SAXON, NOT BA? (B15).


[SP 77330109] Tumulus [NR] (B18).
Cop Round Barrow, Bledlow. Mixed cemetery, secondary in barrow. SP 774 101. Circa 1937 J. F. Head excavated a bowl-barrow of chalk rubble and mould, circa 60' diameter and 7' high (much disturbed) on a small chalk hill called the Cop, 200' above the Icknield Way. Two Saxon secondary inhumation burials were discovered, one in a shallow grave above the primary burial, where the legs only of a girl of 18 were in situ, extended. On the N of the barrow was a male skeleton, head S in a grave 1' deep. 5' 8" long and 2' wide, lying supine but squashed against the right side of the grave and with head raised. Associated were an open-socketed spearhead, an iron knife and a pair of broken bronze tweezers. There were also four pits containing Anglo-Saxon cremations, varying from 1' 3" to 2' deep, all with smooth vertical sides cut with a metal tool. Two contained plain urns in situ, the rest had been disturbed. Three urns had evidently contained combs in addition to burnt bones. Another cremation burial had been disturbed by the second inhumation; and another pit of exactly similar construction contained nothing but earth. One of the combs is of a distinctive hog-backed single type. Also found disturbed in the barrow were a small bronze ring, Three pairs of tweezers, two bronze pins, an iron ring and bronze fragments, and a pottery spindle-whorl and bead-any or all of which may be Anglo-Saxon. Professor Parsons presented the RCS with an adult male 'Chiltern
settler' skull from a barrow on Bledlow Hill probably this site (B19).
The primary burial had been an inhumation and in the already disturbed filling of the grave sherds of Romano-British, Bronze Age and native Bronze Age pottery were found. Finds from the barrow material included a polished greenstone axe, a bronze knife, an antler bridle cheekpiece and a small plano-convex flint knife. An Acheulian handaxe was found in the core of the barrow and to the NE of the mound a small squatting site with a sherd of Wessex B beaker was discovered (B1).
Beaker sherds from Cop Barrow, Wain Hill. Corpus Nos. 39F and 40F. Group W/MR and Bowl (B20).
A bowl-barrow at SP 7733 0108 under pasture and light scrub situated on top of a prominent spur known as The Cop. It measures c 14.5m in overall diameter and is c 1.6m high. There is no certain trace of an outer ditch. No further information on finds or contemporary occupation in the vicintity. Re-surveyed at 1:2500 (B21).
A sub-conical urn with everted rim, base missing; smooth grey-brown ware, grass tempered.[from cremation pit A]. In Buckinghamshire County Museum Accession No 118.57a (B22).

This record includes National Record of the Historic Environment Information provided by Historic England on 4 June 2025 licensed under the Open Government Licence.