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Artificial Mound
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Perhaps the idea that the Marlborough Mound is not merely a motte is not a new one. In 1782, in his 'Observations on the River Wye', William Gilpin (the prebendary of Salisbury) wrote:Marlborough-down is one of those vast, dreary scenes, which our ancestors, in the dignity of a state of nature, chose as the repositories of their dead. Every where we see the tumuli, which were raised over their ashes; among which the largest is Silbury-hill.. At the great inn at Marlborough formerly a mansion of the Somerset-family, one of these tumuli stands in the garden, and is whimsically cut into a spiral walk; which, ascending imperceptibly, is lengthened into half a mile. The conceit at least gives an idea of the bulk of these massy fabrics. Could this have been an idea he was told as a visitor - that the mound was a giant barrow? Maybe he heard it was Merlin's burial mound.
Quoted in 'Notes on Marlborough Castle' by JHP Pafford, in WAM v60 (1965).
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Posted by Rhiannon
6th July 2005ce
Edited 21st May 2011ce
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