The name Wharram Percy is most often associated with the DMV of the same name, but a short distance to the south-west is a collection of at least a dozen round barrows. Most of these, especially the barrows on the plateau of land between Toisland Farm and Wharram Percy farm, have been ploughed away but one survives as a slight bump next to a field boundary that leads north from SE837633. Others are marked on the OS Map running in a roughly east-west line to the north of the crest of Birdsall Brow but as this is private land (?) and someone was shooting game nearby I was reluctant to venture further to investigate. I did however get a picture of what is marked as a barrow as SE835637 although I’m not sure if the raised land it stands on is natural or man-made. There are some spectacular views from the crest of the Brow to the north – those Bronze Age people certainly knew how to site their cemeteries – and the whole area could do with some further investigation.
According to Dyer in ‘Discovering Prehistoric England’ some of these barrows follow the line of a possible ancient trackway close to Bridsall Brow. Some were dug into by JR Mortimer in 1866 who found – inhumations, cremations (some in the same barrows) food-vessels, a bone pin, flint knife and punch, collared urns and jet ear plugs.
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Posted by Chris Collyer
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