The four criteria for assessing class importance apply to pond barrows as follows:
- Period (currency): Extended. The tradition of building and using pond barrows probably spanned the later part of the early Bronze Age and some of the middle Bronze Age, a period of perhaps 350-400 years in the second half of the second millennium RCYBC.
- Rarity: Very rare. Excluding pond barrows that occur as components of round barrow cemeteries the number of recorded examples is rather less than 50. Because of the difficulties of recognizing examples of this class it is possible that others remain to be discovered, but compared with other contemporary monuments it is unlikely that pond barrows were ever very numerous.
- Diversity (form): Low. On the basis of present evidence only a single type of pond barrow can be identified, although there are variations in the size of recorded examples and in the number and nature of the features within the central depression.
- Period (representativity): Very high. Pond barrows are one of rather few classes of early/middle Bronze Age monument known at present. Moreover, the kinds of context represented at known examples, especially Wilsford, means that a great deal of evidence is preserved not just about the use of the site itself but also about the surrounding landscape and the technologies and engineering capabilities of the time.
Assigning scores to these criteria following the system set out in the Monument Evaluation Manual, pond barrows yield a Class Importance Value of 42. This lies over two-thirds of the way up the range of possible values (max.= 64) reflecting the rarity and representativity of the class. Examples representing the full range of sizes and situations must also be included in the sample of nationally important sites.