Event/Activity EPM232 - Gob's Barrow, Portsdown Hill

The barrow site on Portsdown Hill known as 'Gob's Barrow' was excavated by Colonel J. H. Cooke in 1926. A report on the excavation written by Cooke under the pseudonym 'Innominate' was published in the Hampshire Telegraph in two parts on the 2nd and 9th of April 1926. The barrow measured 64 yards by 28 yards (approximately 59m x 25.5m) and had been so reduced by years of ploughing that it was 'not more than 2ft 6in high at any point'. Traces of a ditch were visible around the outer edge. It was unclear whether the site consisted of one long barrow or two round barrows side by side each surrounded by a ditch. According to the report four trenches were excavated on the north, south, east and west periphery of the barrow in order to investigate the ditch that surrounded it. Two trenches 14ft long x 10ft wide x 2ft 6ins deep were excavated in the eastern and western halves of the mound. Cooke decided not to excavate the centre of the barrow as a depression in this area suggested that it had already been broken into/opened at some point during its history. The excavation concluded that the barrow was oval in shape and surrounded by one continuous ditch. The remains of what were interpreted as two flint cists for cremation burials were recorded in the eastern and western halves of the barrow and a crouched inhumation burial containing a flint dagger and pottery beaker was discovered in the western half about 5.5m from the centre of the mound.