Lamborough Banks

Also known as:
Ablington Barrow, Monument No. 329694 and Witts' No 1
Nearest town:
Cirencester (11km SW)
OS reference:
SP107094
OS sheet:
163
Latitude:
51° 46' 57.55 N
Longitude:
1° 50' 41.54 W
Added to TMA by

Sites within Lamborough Banks

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Images

Image of Lamborough Banks (Long Barrow) by GLADMAN

Looking from the south...... there’s a stone in there somewhere. Honest.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Feb 24, 2011
Image of Lamborough Banks (Long Barrow) by GLADMAN

The orthostat at the southern end of the monument. Hmmm....

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Feb 24, 2011
Image of Lamborough Banks (Long Barrow) by GLADMAN

Looking north along the weatern flank from near the middle (ish) of the long barrow......

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Feb 24, 2011
Image of Lamborough Banks (Long Barrow) by GLADMAN

Looking from the north along the eastern flank.... sometimes you can’t see the earth for the trees. Or something like that.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Feb 24, 2011
Image of Lamborough Banks (Long Barrow) by wysefool

Monolith, heart-shaped curves of double walling, and pyramidal piling in Long Barrow. (illustration circa 1896)

wysefool
wysefool May 6, 2007
Image of Lamborough Banks (Long Barrow) by Moth

From roughly north including a ruined chamber. Photo does just about give an impression of the length of the whole barrow

Image credit: Tim Clark
Moth
Moth Feb 24, 2004

Articles

Lamborough Banks

C
CARL Mar 28, 2011

Visited 26.3.11.
I parked on the main road just past the farm entrance and walked up the mud track which leads into the trees. Luckily it has been a dry month or otherwise it would have been a very muddy walk indeed!
I would have asked permission to visit but there was no one about.
As you approach the wire fence on your left you will see a blue plastic water tank near the fence. Turn right here and in no time you will at the Long Barrow.
The Barrow has been clearly dug into in several places and was looking a bit sorry for itself. Although very large it was covered in brambles and bushes, making access quite difficult. I wouldn’t fancy trying to explore in the height of summer!

This site is recorded on my large AA map (the type you can but in petrol stations etc). I wonder what criteria they use when deciding which sites to include on their map? There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason? You would expect to see the ‘main’ sites (Avebury, Stonehenge etc) but why select only a few of these ‘minor’ types of site. Afterall, parking is not great and there is no public access to the site. Even when you do get there access is difficult. Just a thought.

Lamborough Banks

tjj
tjj Mar 21, 2011

Walking from Bibury towards the lovely village of Ablington, past an area marked as a ‘settlement’ on the OS map (though no visual evidence). After leaving peaceful Ablington we made our way to a strange other-worldly valley which felt like a stream or river had once flowed there. This we followed up to some abandoned stone pigsties, then with Gambra Hill to our left we followed a field edge to Lamborough Banks long barrow. On the edge of a grouse rearing wood, the barrow is behind a Cotswold stone wall. We didn’t attempt to climb over the wall as a very good view of the barrow without doing so. Like most un-restored long barrows, this one is much damaged and overgrown with brambles – though probably the longest long barrow I’ve yet seen (excluding WKLB). Today parts of it were covered with a profusion of wild violets.

Timothy Darvill in his book Prehistoric Gloucestershire describes another nearby mound as a beehive chamber. We did manage to locate the mound a short walk from Lamborough at the side of a nearby farm – again enclosed by a stone wall and at the centre of a newly planted saplings. (Sometimes described as Ablington Barrow 2)

Lamborough Banks

GLADMAN
GLADMAN Mar 8, 2011

Forming the final visit to a triumvirate of long barrows today – and preceded by the mighty Crippets and evocative Coberley – Lamborough Banks was, in retrospect, perhaps on a hiding to nothing in the Gladman appreciation stakes.

The unusual nature of the visit to come was perhaps foretold by a village sign along the B4425 duly announcing ‘Barnsley’.... now my route finding is bad, granted. But not that bad, I’d have thought? It’s not, the Ablington turn off at Bibury leading me past the former to an seemingly abandoned farm within trees to the left of the minor road. With no sign of a farm house (that I could see) and a deserted commercial concern of some description to my right, I decide to go walkabout down the seriously muddy track, veering right as suggested in previous posts. Sure enough, a break in the trees heads left past a large enclosure of chicken wire.... and there it is. A seriously overgrown long barrow.

And I mean seriously overgrown, a single orthostat upon the southern end of the mound all but consumed by brambles. So then, not a place to hang out unless you have a cast iron constitution... or happen to be a devotee of the Marquis de Sade. But hey, who am I to judge? Despite this, a walkabout hacking one’s way through the undergrowth reveals Lamborough Banks to be quite an upstanding monument, one featuring traces of what may well be chambers in addition to the previous mentioned stone.

And then the shooting starts.... shotgun reports to my north, south, east and.... yeah, there it goes... west. I’m surrounded by ‘individuals’ with guns, the sort who think shooting ‘things’ is fun. Oh dear. Time to leave unless I fancy a walk on/carry out part in a remake of ‘Southern Comfort’. Speaking of which, a man lurks silently in the trees as I return to the car. To be fair, however, a landrover parked in the yard suggests this to be the farmer not wishing to make a big deal. If so, I appreciate the gesture.

So, self preservation took precedence over the study of antiquity this time around – although the visit did last an hour. Come to Lamborough Banks when the guns remain silent and no doubt a great time can be had by all.

Lamborough Banks

Jane
Jane Jan 28, 2004

This is – or was – an absolute beauty. Ten metres longer than Belas Knap it shows signs of once magnificent side chambers, à la Belas Knap, perhaps as many as six of them. There was a lot of rubble underfoot, some still stacked up, which you could see if you lifted some of the leaf mulch and dug around a bit with your fingers But at some point it has been carelessly dug out. One single standing stone at its head end is all that’s left upright; 3 feet tall, 3 feet wide and only 6 inches thick.

Despite its terrible condition, I was really impressed with this place. I guess I have seen enough long barrows now to be able to fill in the blanks in my imagination.

You really wouldn’t want to come here in the summer when the undergrowth is at its height, the brambles turn it into Ankle Laceration City, even in winter.

Lamborough Banks

hamish
hamish Jan 1, 2004

This barrow is one of the ones vandalised by the Victorians, and it is in a very ruined state as you can see from the photos, but worth a visit. Ask permission in the farm, if you cannot find anyone follow the lane one the right you will come to a pheasant brake, the barrow is in here.

Miscellaneous

Lamborough Banks
Long Barrow
Chance
Chance Jun 9, 2014

Details of long barrow on Pastscape

(SP 1075 0941) Long Barrow (NR) The long barrow known as Lamborough Banks measures 300 ft by 75 ft high, aligned SSE/NNW. Excavated in 1854 by S Lysons who found a single orthostat of a blind entrance at the south end between two V-shaped horns built of dry-stone-walling, which extended to form inner and outer revetments enclosing the whole barrow. At the north end was a cist or lateral chamber containing a single primary inhumation (Witts’ No 1). (2-3)
The ‘Lamborough Banks’ Long Barrow survives as a tree covered mound 90.0m in length, 2.0m in height and 38.0m in width at its widest (SSE) end. Its W side is flanked by a modern stone wall beyond which it is ploughed out. The barrow was very badly mutilated by Lysons excavations, the holes of which were left open, and it is now in a poor condition. Nothing of the horned entrance, nor of the revetment walls, chambers or ditches can now be recognised.

Sites within 20km of Lamborough Banks

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