Tinkinswood Burial Chamber View all content for Tinkinswood

Visited 28.7.12 After reading an article in the latest CADW magazine I was inspired to make another trip to Tinkinswood. This was no hardship as A – it was a lovely sunny day, B – it’s only 30 minutes away and C – it’s a fab place to visit! I parked in the small parking area and made my way across the field to the burial chamber. As ever, I had the place to myself although on this occasion the chamber didn’t have its near permanent puddle, just a few inches of soft mud. Which at least made stooping through the entrance a bit less messy than normal. The sun was warm, the grass dry (also for a change) and I sat a while in the forecourt and tried to imagine the ceremonies which may have taken place here and all the people who had been here over 5,000 years or so. It was a very relaxing experience. I then headed over to the ‘quarry’ area to have a look at the place where a Bronze Age Barrow had recently been discovered. The CADW article states that this was a ‘modest barrow, about 5m in diameter. It covered two pits cut into the bedrock but, presumably due to the acidic soil, no traces remained of the burials’. In the upper levels, a lot of cremated bones and a Roman coin was found. Looking at the Barrow site a very slight raise can be seen if you use the ‘eye of faith’. It did make me think mind why the large slabs of stone were piled on top of it? Was this deliberate or coincidence? I guess we will never know. These stones used to be thought as a possible collapsed burial chamber but it has been shown that this is not the case – even if it looks like one! I then went to have a go at the new audio post which CADW have installed to tell the site’s story. Unfortunately it has already been removed! I did hear that it had stopped working after only 2 weeks so hopefully it has been taken to be repaired and not as an act of vandalism.

Posted by CARL 31st July 2012ce

Comments (1)
we visited on 31st Aug 13, the audio post was working again.	Posted by xseawitch 1st September 2013ce
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