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Six Hills

Barrow / Cairn Cemetery

Folklore

Ok so these are 'Roman' and they do run alongside a Roman road. But keep it quiet, keep it quiet. It is suggested in the smr that they are the graves of native British aristocrats who "chose to perpetuate aspects of Iron Age burial practice" so I think they're kind of allowable.

By the way - the earth in them comes from neaby Whormerly Wood (TL247236):
Near Stevenage are six barrows by the roadside. My father, John Emslie, was told, in 1835, by Mr. Williams, baker, of Stevenage, that in an adjoining wood are seven pits and one barrow. The devil, having dug out six spadefuls of earth, emptied them beside the road, thus making the six barrows. He then returned to the wood, dug another spadeful of earth (thus making the seven pits) and, walking along with this spadeful, dropped it and thus made the solitary barrow, which, I was told in 1883, had long since been cleared away.
(from Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie, by C. S. Burne, in Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170. )


If you're passing through Stevenage on the train you'll be able to see them if you look east through the buildings just south of the station.
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
4th March 2004ce
Edited 30th September 2006ce

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