The Modern Antiquarian. Stone Circles, Ancient Sites, Neolithic Monuments, Ancient Monuments, Prehistoric Sites, Megalithic MysteriesThe Modern Antiquarian

Lambourn Sevenbarrows

Barrow / Cairn Cemetery

Fieldnotes

Today, with an interlude of winter sun for about an hour.

A circular (triangular) walk from Upper Lambourn using OS map 170. Set off late morning along a surprisingly unmuddy byway as far as Postdown’s Farm from where we had to do some road walking. Clear signs of recent flooding, the adjacent fields were lake-like in places – we passed a couple of large round barrows on our left as we walked towards Seven Barrows Nature Reserve. The road was badly flooded by the entrance to the nature reserve and the entrance impassable on foot without wellies, fast flowing water running off into a nearby field (must be springs around here to cause to the water to flow such). We managed to jump across a water filled ditch and scramble under some blackthorn hedging to get a better look at the seven (possibly eight) barrows.

The landscape is astonishing – apparently 26 barrows in all dating back to 2200BC. We didn’t actually count the ones we saw besides the seven in the nature reserve but there were several. The sense of walking through an important Bronze Age cemetery was tangible.

We continued on foot along the road past Seven Barrows House and took the track towards Uffington to look for the long barrow shown on the OS map. Not much left and it would be easy to walk past if you didn’t know it was there as absorbed into a beech plantation – two fine stones remain though.

Picked up another muddy byway back to Upper Lambourn and happily came across the Hangman’s Stone just before the track back down to the village. A small standing stone approximately a metre high – probably a boundary stone.
tjj Posted by tjj
6th January 2013ce

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