Aubrey Burl (in ‘Prehistoric Avebury’) hypothesises that Willy Howe is another Silbury Hill or Duggleby Howe – a Neolithic mound with no burial, and with significance other than a mausoleum (the burial mentioned by fitzcoraldo below was a later interment). It was trenched into by Canon Greenwell in 1886, who like Lord Londesborough before him found no bones, but did find a rock-cut pit. Greenwell was an enthusiastic digger, “a clergyman whose methods have led archaeologists to wish that he had used his knees more often in prayer and less frequently in excavation.”