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Butterbumps Barrow Cemetery

Barrow / Cairn Cemetery

Fieldnotes

I really like this little barrow cemetery. After driving through the pretty town of Alford a series of twisty roads lead you out into the wilds of east Lincolnshire, you can’t go much further before you fall into the sea at Chapel St Leonards. This isolated rural position gives the dozen ploughed closely set barrows a lovely peaceful atmosphere – few cars ever pass by on the nearby road and the quiet is only occasionally broken if the wind changes direction and carries the sound of the seaside fairground over from the coast. In the past when I have visited the site it has always been deserted, this time it was home to a herd of young cows. As soon as they saw me walking up the track they stopped their chewing and came over to the fence that surrounds the barrows, I didn’t go any closer as the fence is only flimsy. Funnily enough the presence of the cows allowed me to get the only half decent pictures I’ve ever taken of the site, none of the low mounds are over a metre high and are usually overgrown but the cows added some kind of scale to the photos – thanks chaps!
Finds from the site include a whetstone and a dagger. C14 dates the cemetery to around 1750BC.
Chris Collyer Posted by Chris Collyer
6th July 2003ce

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