The excavation of these barrows was undertaken in the autumn of 1949 for the Ministry of Works in advance of building. They stood immediately adjacent to each other on Plateau Gravel overlying the Bagshot Beds towards the western extremity of the Hampshire Basin, and only a hundred yards north of the crest of the Bourne Bottom which leads down to Bournemouth and Poole Bay about three miles distant (fig. 1). The surrounding heath is rich in round barrows, and the district has yielded plentiful evidence of prehistoric man.