Bronze Age Bowl Barrow

Tony Rudgard

The most historic patch of Liphook Golf Course is the Burial Mound between the 14th tee and the 11th green. It was built in about 500 BC when a Saxon chieftain was buried below ground level in the centre of the mound (or ‘tumulus’). This was towards the end of the Bronze Age, a period during which copper, lead and tin were mined and converted into bronze for tools and ornaments. Artefacts of the period were almost certainly buried with the chieftain. It is located just inside the Hampshire border on land now owned by Richard Northcott.

According to the Hampshire Treasurer’s records the mound had not been disturbed from that time until the Club placed a Ladies’ Tee on it. Elsewhere, many barrows have been quietly excavated in an attempt to learn more about the chieftains and the articles buried with them.

In about 1900 thirty Douglas Fir trees were planted round the top of the mound; strong winds and thinning have reduced this to twenty. Very few barrows have trees planted on them, and special permission must have been obtained by the then owner, Mr R Lee, but there is no record of this. The records state that in 1929 the mound was surrounded by dry stone walling; in 1949 the stone wall was removed and shallow ditch dug round it. The mound is now well maintained by David Murdoch and his team.