Miscellaneous

Normanton Down and Bush Barrow
Barrow / Cairn Cemetery

Account of William Stukeley’s diggings on a disc barrow in the Normanton Down group:

We dug up one of those I call Druid’s barrows, a small tump inclos’d in a large circular ditch. I chose that next to bushbarrow, westward of it. Stonehenge bears hence north-east. We made a cross section ten foot each way, three foot broad over its center, upon the cardinal points. At length we found a squarish hole cut into the solid chalk, in the center of the tumulus. It was three foot and a half, i.e. two cubits long, and near two foot broad, i.e. one cubit: pointing to Stonehenge directly. It was a cubit and half deep from the surface. This was the domus exilis Plutonia cover’d with artificial earth, not above a foot thick from the surface. In this little grave we found all the burnt bones of a man, but no signs of an urn. The bank of the circular ditch is on the outside, and is 12 cubits broad. The ditch is 6 cubits broad (the Druid’s staff) the area is 70 cubits in diameter. The whole 100.

Stonehenge, A Temple Restor’d to the British Druids, by William Stukeley, 1740