Longbury

Having recently been engaged with several other gentlemen in opening a barrow or tumulus in the parish of Gillingham, Dorset, and known as Langbury Hill, I am desirous to lay the results before your readers, and to ask their opinion relative to the appearances presented. The barrow in question is a long low mound of earth, measuring,- in its present state, about one hundred feet from its eastern to its western extremity, by about thirty feet wide, while the highest part is some six feet above the level of the surrounding field.

Tradition states that it was the burial place of those who were slain in a battle between the Saxons and Danes ; doubtless referring to the battle of Penn, fought in 1016 between Edmund Ironside and Canute, the village of Penn being only a few miles distant, in a northerly direction.

The tradition proceeds to inform us that the blood shed on this occasion flowed as far as to a place still called Slaughter's Gate, and which is distant about a quarter of a mile from the barrow.