Plan showing the layout and extent of permissive access to the two groups.
NB: There is no access between the two groups at the south, you have to return to the track (unless you want to climb a lot of barbed wire fences unnecessarily).
Image credit: Crown Copyright/Ordnance Survey
These barrows are covered in the North Down Cemetery with pictures and fieldnotes.
See themodernantiquarian.com/site/6487/north_down.html for details
Thanks Chance, I've deleted the new site, I hadn't realised it extended this far.
There is another Baltic Farm group added by Carl though, which probably ought to be merged as well if they're all being kept together under a single site. themodernantiquarian.com/site/15142/baltic_farm.html
In fact, perhaps all the other individual barrow sites in the area (e.g. Yatesbury) should be similarly merged into groups.
One for the Eds maybe?
It can be difficult to distinguish the area some of the barrow cemeteries extend to. I remember examining some of these barrows back in the 1980's when we were updating the SMR database and the names given were quit misleading. The Baltic farm group are all on private land around the farm itself and you need to ask permission to visit them.
All in all in think the Ed's do a good job maintaining the TMA database, but I did noticed that the ancient flint mine at Furze Knoll, on top of Morgan's Hill, has been erased, along with Mother Anthony's well, at the base of Oliver's Castle. Sites like these would have been fundamental to the ancient mind set and help explain how the ancients saw the landscape. I guess that's what happens when you get a committee running things and end up loosing vital local knowledge about an area.
Part of the problem I have when adding new sites in England is that Pastscape often doesn't give you any names - unlike Coflein or Canmore, both of which call everything something. So if you search TMA you sometimes can't tell what's been added already because the name means nothing (North Down on TMA, Bishops Cannings barrows x-y on Pastscape, Baltic Farm on the information board on site - which the picture above is from).
I may have prompted the Furze Knoll deletion by adding some pictures to it the other night, so perhaps it was reviewed after that. Mother's Anthony's Well is live and kicking though themodernantiquarian.com/site/13496/mother_anthonys_well.html
Right, got it. Have you visited the source of the River Marden on Ranscombe Bottem?
see SU 03446 68533. Well worth a visit if you want to experience the area.
Ooh I did a while back, I thought it was rather special. Though I fought my way up the difficult side of the combe for some reason. But you can avoid that by walking up the road (not so exciting though). And then you come out at the nice clear spring in the field at the top. And then if you continue walking into Ranscombe Bottom it's really quite odd, all enclosed, but a dry valley. I'd recommend it too :)
Sounds worth a trip that way, those blooming dry valleys are deceptively steep and hard on the ankles though :)