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England
Lambourn Long BarrowLong Barrow
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Visited 31.7.10. I had a bit of trouble finding what is left of the long barrow as it didn't show on the O/S map I was using! For those in a similar situation, this is how you find it: Continue north along the road which runs past the nature reserve / field containing the Lambourn Seven Barrows. In a short while, at the point where the road bends to the right, there is a parking area on the left. Park here. To the west you will see a public right of way leading up to a small wooded area. This is where you will find the remains of the barrow. There is next to nothing to see although there is a large flat stone next to a tree trunk right next to the path – just before you reach the gate. No doubt this must once have been part of the barrow? |
Posted by CARL 3rd August 2010ce |
| I liked it here although there wasn't much to really see. You wouldn't really know there was anything here at all if you hadn't been forewarned. The barrow is where there's a rough patch of ground (awash with lovely pyramidal orchids at the moment) and across some confusing lumps in the edge of the wood. So it's hard to understand what's what. I was totally taken though with the huge flattish stone lurking under one of the trees, I was very pleased to spot that, I had to give it a pat. Perhaps others would be easier to find at another time of year when there's fewer leaves about. Also it didn't help that the sun was extremely hot and I was starting to feel a bit odd. Fortunately it's only a short flat jaunt back to the road (there's masses of space where you can park your car). |
Posted by Rhiannon28th June 2010ce Edited 29th June 2010ce |
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This long barrow is adjacent to the LB7 bronze age group. The hill adjacent is called 'Crog Hill' (Meaning 'hill of the dead'). What was once a mighty stone age tomb, is now no more than a bump in the ground. I often come to this site, but this visit saddens me. It appears the local landowner has driven a fence right across the middle of it and removed the smaller sarsen stones from the site and piled them up. Two large pieces of sarsen still remain in situ (I guess they weren't strong enough to move them too). Isn't this damaging a listed ancient monument site? Angry of Wantage... |
Posted by wysefool26th March 2007ce |
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An article in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology in 2000* gives some dates for the barrow, measured with the AMS technique. Tests were made on an antler pick that was found on the barrow's ditch floor, and this gave a similar result to bits of skull and femur that were also found - giving an average of 3760 - 3645 cal BC. So not as old as the radiocarbon dates that wysefool rightly queries below. But still pretty damn old, in the early Neolithic - building mounds like this one was very much the new fangled Neolithic thing to do. The article suggests the date supports the idea that the change from mesolithic to neolithic ways of life was rapid, though I don't know how generally believed that is? More human remains were found amongst the sarsen stones at the head of the barrow - these gave slightly later dates of 3330 - 2885 cal BC. So the barrow still had importance in the landscape later on. And then of course it's at one end of all the Bronze age barrows of Lambourn 'seven' barrows. *'New AMS dates from the Lambourn long barrow and the question of the earliest neolithic in Southern England: repacking the neolithic package?' Rick J Schulting (v19, issue 1). |
Posted by Rhiannon 28th June 2010ce Edited 29th June 2010ce |
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The most important funerary monument remaining is the Lambourn Long Barrow, on the northern boundary of Lambourn parish, and standinga t the head of a shallow valley containing a group of later monuments known as Seven Barrows. The valley is now dry but may once have contained a spring worshipped in ancient times, and which, perhaps, was the reaosn for siting the barrows here. The Long Barrow has been badly damaged by centuries of ploughing and by a track running across one end used by farm vehicles and race horses. The barrow was excavated at least twice, but inexpertly, in the 19th century, and some human remains were removed. Rescue operations in 1964 found no great quantity of artefacts, but some of the potsherds resembled pottery found at the famous Neolithic camp on Windmill Hill, 20 miles away. A mass of sarsen stones disturbed by previous excavators may have formed a central core to the barrow. Daphne Phillips Berkshire - a county history |
Posted by wysefool 13th May 2007ce |
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'Discovered about 1850, the NE end of the site is in the wood and crossed by the cart tack. It is c.220ft long, 70ft wide at its E end and here 4+1/2ft high. Parallel side-ditches originally 7ft deep, flank the mound, whose ends are open. Excavation has shown that their contents provided a turf cover with chalk crust to a core of sarsens which constitute the mound. Near the E end a contracted female burial has been found, associated with extra human bones and a necklace or bracelet of polished common dog whelk. Date (C14) circa 3,400 BC.' Nicholas Thomas, Guide to Prehistoric England, 1976 |
Posted by wysefool 12th May 2007ce |
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Barry Cunliffe - Wessex to 1000 AD (published 1993) 'Apart from the dog, which existed in domesticated form in the Mesolithic period, the earliest domesticated animals known from Wessex are cattle and sheep or goat, both of which have been identified at the long barrows of Lambourn (c.4200BC) and Fussel's Lodge (c.4000BC). Domesticated pigs are first recorded in the pre-enclosure level at Windmill Hill in a context dated to c.3800BC.' Wysefool says: Interesting that the date for the animal find (presumably bone) is given as circa 4200BC, an earlier date than I'd previously thought for the 'Oldest Long Barrow in England' an older than the 'Magic' date of 3415BC. The date of 4200BC was from radiocarbon dating and therefore could be plus/minus a fair few years, but not 800 odd! |
Posted by wysefool 7th May 2007ce Edited 7th May 2007ce |
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from 'Berkshire' by Ian Yarrow 'A chambered long barrow was discovered in 1935 br Mr L V Grinsell ... who was wandering among the lambourn seven barrows one sunny september day. It may sound amazing that a barrow 220ft long and 50ft wide should have passed unnoticed until 1935. But the thing was not so obvious as it sounds, for one end of it was ploughed up, and a cart-track and a grassy bank ran across the other end. It was, in fact, pretty well hidden, and it took a "barrow detective" like Mr Grinsell to spot it. The sarsen stones which originally formed the passage and chambers lay beneath the cart-track and had become exposed.' |
Posted by wysefool 7th May 2007ce |
| 'While visiting the Seven Barrows the reader should not fail to see the long barrow north-west of the main group, which was found by the writer in 1935.' (found by L V Grinsell) |
Posted by wysefool 7th May 2007ce |
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The longbarrow Wysefool mentions near Wescot Wood contained a burial interred with some perforated seashells (perhaps a necklace then?). Far from home for some seashells. I wonder where they came from and what they meant to their owner? Had they ever been to the sea themselves? (info from James Dyer's 'Discovering Regional Archaeology: The Cotswolds and the Upper Thames' 1970) According to magic, the site has been dated to 3415 BC, "currently the earliest date for a long barrow in Britain". |
Posted by Rhiannon 6th November 2003ce Edited 26th March 2007ce |
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ADSAn article about the 1964 excavation, by J J Wymer and others. You can see the links to figures, photos and so on here: http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/library/berks_bas_2007/journal.cfm?volume=62 The article does contain a nice map which handily shows the position of the barrow in relation to the many others in the area. |
Posted by Rhiannon 6th May 2008ce |
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