Images

Image of Five Barrows by A R Cane

Yet another glorious sunset on what has become an almost yearly pilgrimage to Five Barrows in conjunction with working at the AJ Wells enamelling factory at Newport. You can’t beat it!

Image credit: A R Cane
Image of Five Barrows by A R Cane

A charming saucer barrow on the Eastern limit of the cemetery.

Image credit: A R Cane
Image of Five Barrows by A R Cane

This curiosity is on the other side of the valley from the barrows, about half a miles walk from the barrows. It may once have stood and is about 1.5m in length and made of a strange highly iron-infused sandstone. There are lots of boulders of the same material further below on the beach at Compton Bay.

Image credit: A R Cane
Image of Five Barrows by A R Cane

What a wonderful place to be buried! This barrow, the largest, still retains a small ditch around it and Mrs Cane for scale.

Image credit: A R Cane
Image of Five Barrows by A R Cane

View looking north from the valley below. These are possibly the most prominent barrows on the island, visible for miles around.

Image credit: A R Cane
Image of Five Barrows by A R Cane

Facing West with Compton Bay, The Needles and the Solent in the background.

Image credit: A R Cane
Image of Five Barrows by A R Cane

Panorama facing South East with the best defined barrow in the foreground.

Image credit: A R Cane
Image of Five Barrows by bawn79

It looks to me as if 5 barrows is part of a golf course now

Image credit: Bawn79

Articles

Five Barrows

Julian failed to visit my homeland of the Isle of Wight for the MA, but while the island may not be exactly teeming with magnificent sites there are a number of number of prehistoric remains scattered around the downland. There are numerous round barrows atop the hills, iron age hill forts, although only one megalith (the Longstone) which is in fact serves as the remains of a longbarrow.

Five Barrows is a wonderful site consisting of nine round barrows on Brook Down, one of the thin spine of hills running out towards the needles on the west of the island. The barrows themselves are of various sizes and condition, with the largest and best preserved example enclosed with a henge. The location is fantastic, commanding a fine view over the west of the Wight, to the chalk cliffs at the western end and towards Afton where the 1970 pop festival was held. It was on the very banks of this downland that some of my heroes including Miles, Hawkwind and the Lizard King himself put in some of their finest performances. On a clear day it is possible to see as far as Portland Bill on the western horizon, whilst clear views over to the New Forest on the mainland are often possible. To the east is Mottistone Down which itself has a number of barrows, and to the South the rugged SW IOW coastline, running down to the headland at Blackgang.

This place always gives me great vibes, and has a strangely different character on separate occasions when I visit, yet always hugely positive.

Sites within 20km of Five Barrows