[Area TR 069470] A round barrow on Wye Downs in the wood called "The Junipers" was excavated by Ackroyd & Bellhouse after the site had been discovered by a gamekeeper uncovering two human bones in a rabbit burrow. Only a few more human bones were found and no pottery or any other grave goods. Jessup is of the opinion that this was a Saxon Barrow. (1) A barrow at TR 06934702 has a large central hole and is therefore probably that excavated in 1939. It is situated on a narrow ridge and measures 12.5m. in diameter and up to 1.3m. in height. There is no trace of a ditch. Its small size and proximity to an accepted Saxon barrow, suggests that this also is Saxon. 50.0m to the South-east along the ridge there are a few vague mounds possibly the remains of further barrows. Surveyed at 1:2500. (2) TR 069470 Wye ? Inhumation burial, primary in barrow 1939. A barrow was dug by two members of Wye College. It had been disturbed and only a few bone fragments were found. There is nothing to date the barrow but it is thought to have been Anglo-Saxon. (3)

From the National Heritage List for England:
The monument includes a hlaew, or early medieval burial mound, situated on a spur projecting from a ridge of the Kent Downs, overlooking the valley of the Great Stour River. The hlaew has a circular, bowl-shaped mound 12.5m in diameter and c.2m high, with a central hollow, the result of partial excavation in 1939. The mound is surrounded by a ditch from which material used to construct the hlaew was excavated. This has become infilled over the years, and survives as a buried feature c.2m wide. The partial excavation of the monument revealed that the mound had been constructed above a roughly rectangular grave measuring 2.74m by 1.22m, which had been dug to a depth of 0.76m into the underlying chalk bedrock. The grave was found to contain the surviving fragments of a subsequently disturbed, extended human burial

Reasons for Designation
A hlaew is a burial monument of Anglo-Saxon or Viking date and comprising a hemispherical mound of earth and redeposited bedrock constructed over a primary burial or burials. These were usually inhumations, buried in a grave cut into the subsoil beneath the mound, but cremations placed on the old ground surface beneath the mound have also been found. Hlaews may occur in pairs or in small groups; a few have accompanying flat graves. Constructed during the pagan Saxon and Viking periods for individuals of high rank, they served as visible and ostentatious markers of their social position. Some were associated with territorial claims and appear to have been specifically located to mark boundaries. They often contain objects which give information on the range of technological skill and trading contacts of the period. Only between 50 and 60 hlaews have been positively identified in England. As a rare monument class all positively identified examples are considered worthy of preservation.

Despite some disturbance by tree growth, the hlaew in Juniper Wood survives well and has been shown by partial excavation to contain archaeological remains and environmental evidence relating to the monument and the landscape in which it was constructed.

<1> Arch Cant 51 1939 215-7 Sect (LJ Ackroyd and RL Bellhouse, RF Jessup) (OS Card Reference). SKE35270.

<2> F1 CFW 20-MAY-1963 (OS Card Reference). SKE42672.

<3> A Gaz of E AS Burial Sites 1964 142 (A Meaney) (OS Card Reference). SKE32778.

<4> Field report for monument TR 04 NE 9 - May, 1963 (Bibliographic reference). SKE5125.