The Norsey Wood Society works closely with Basildon Borough Council, the owners of Norsey Wood Nature Reserve, an ancient woodland which is also a Site of Special Scientific Interest on the edge of Billericay in Essex, UK
Bronze Age

Bronze Age Burial Mound

The Bronze Age was the period between the Neolithic and Iron Ages, from approximately 2500 BC/BCE and 700 BC/BCE in Britain, when metal (copper and bronze) was first used for tools and weapons.


The enclosure of the woodland in the medieval period incidentally provided protection for traces of far earlier activity, some aspects of which were visible as earthworks whilst others remained unknown until disturbed by gravel extraction in the 19th century.


The Wood formerly contained two Bronze Age burial mounds, also known as barrows or tumuli. The surviving example is located on the gravel plateau to the east of the valley, about 20 metres from the southern edge of the Wood (see the Official Guide and Map). Please note: Waymark 9 on this map should be closer to

the lower part of the Trail (ie parallel to Break Egg Hill) as the barrow is only visible from there.The barrow is circular in plan with a low domed profile, measuring about 15m diameter and 1.5m high and is a shadow of its former self owing to natural erosion and human excavation.

The Wood formerly contained two Bronze Age burial mounds, also known as barrows or tumuli. The surviving example is located on the gravel plateau to the east of the valley, about 20 metres from the southern edge of the Wood (see the Official Guide and Map). Please note: Waymark 9 on this map should be closer to the lower part of the Trail (ie parallel to Break Egg Hill) as the barrow is only visible from there.The barrow is circular in plan with a low domed profile, measuring about 15m diameter and 1.5m high and is a shadow of its former self owing to natural erosion and human excavation.

In 1865, the Revd E. L. Cutts supervised the excavation of a trench from the western edge to the centre of the mound.Fragments of Roman pottery and an indecipherable bronze coin were uncovered in the process, perhaps indicating some disturbed later internments, but the central grave group of three large inverted cinerary urns (vessels containing cremated human remains) clearly points to Middle Bronze Age origin. The second barrow, which now no longer exists, lay on the opposite side of the Wood alongside Norsey Road and was also trenched by Cutts in 1865. A central group of seven urns was found, only one of which contained cremated remains. It was investigated once more in 1895, disrupted by residential developments in the 1950s and finally overlain by a house and garage around 1965. This second area is not a part of the scheduled Ancient Monument.

It has been suggested that there may have been at least one other mound in the Wood, perhaps in the Deerbank area, as they have been found elsewhere in groups of three in the vicinity of springheads. It is also thought that the surrounding area may have been wooded at the time of burial. Pollen analysis at some sites has shown that to be the case. This would have provided a secretive place, appropriate for the veneration of ancestors.

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