Trow Rocks barrow, inhumation

HER Number:
833

District:
S Tyneside

Site Name:
Trow Rocks barrow, inhumation

Place:
Trow Rocks

Map Sheet:
NZ36NE

Class:
Religious Ritual and Funerary

Site Type: Broad:
Funerary Site

Site Type: Specific:
Cist

General Period:
Prehistoric

Specific Period:
Bronze Age

Form of Evidence:
Find

Description:
In 1873, after workmen had discovered a cist in the Trow Rocks barrow, the site was investigated by Greenwell. "At the centre was a cist, consisting of six stones set on edge, two on each side and one at each end, with two cover- stones; some thin pieces of stone were set on the side stones to make the top level and to support the covers. The cist lay north north-west and south south-east, and was 4 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 1 feet 10 inches deep, sunk into the clay which there overlies the limestone, the covers being on the level of the natural surface". The cist contained a crouched inhumation, "a skeleton, apparently of a man, very much decayed, laid on the right side, with the head to south-east...", some pieces of charcoal and a flint knife, made from an outside flake, and measuring 2 3/8 inches long and 1 1/4 inches wide. "The slabs of the cist, which were of marl, were removed to the residence of the late Mr. P.J. Messent, then engineer to the Tyne Commissioners, at Tynemouth".

Easting:
384

Northing:
667

Grid Reference:
NZ384667

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
<< HER 833 >> South Shields Gazette, 1873, 14 March W. Greenwell, 1877, British Barrows, 442 Transactions Architectectural & Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland, 1890, A Prae-Historic Cist Burial at Sacriston, III, 183 G.B. Hodgson, 1903, The Borough of South Shields, 9 W. Page, ed. 1905, Early Man, Victoria County History, Durham, I, 208 R. Miket, 1984, The Prehistory of Tyne and Wear, p. 80 no. 1