This barrow cemetery behind the Pheasant Hotel probably consisted of nine mounds. Now only a couple are visible. Mr Grinsell speaks of it here:- In one of the round barrows behind Winterslow Hut, Wiltshire, there was a secondary Late Bronze Age cremation with unburnt human hair associated. Recent analysis .. showed that it was from the eyebrows.. and the total quantity is more than could have been obtained from the eyebrows of one individual. It therefore seems likely that the hair has been shaved from the mourners as a sign of grief. It is of interest to note that a bronze razor.. was associated with this interment (WAM 52, 1948, pp126f). The late Mr. Frank Stevens drew attention to the shaving of the eyebrows as a sign of mourning among certain Eastern peoples of the present day...
231. Shaving off the Eyebrows as a Sign of Mourning
L. V. Grinsell
Man, Vol. 50. (Oct., 1950), p. 144. A curious tale, and here's another (though irrelevant bar geography).
Winterslow Hut was the name of the inn on the A30 coaching road here, since renamed the Pheasant Hotel. In 1816 it was the scene of a bizarre incident in which a mail coach was attacked by a lioness that had escaped from a travelling menagerie. "The coach passengers with great presence of mind locked themselves inside the inn while the keepers recaptured the lioness from under a granary."
http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getfaq.php?id=112
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Posted by Rhiannon
9th June 2007ce
Edited 9th June 2007ce
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