This long barrow is close to the Roman (and now modern) road which crosses the high ground of the Down. It’s presumably positioned for prominence from below, aligned along the slope and still stands up to 2 1/2 metres high (info. from its record on Magic).
Rhiannon
The most obvious landscape feature on Roughridge Hill is no doubt Wansdyke, but at its side is a hugely older Neolithic long barrow. Two early Bronze Age round barrows were also on the hill: these were excavated by Proudfoot in the 1960s. Underneath them he found traces of pits dating to the early Neolithic. The largest was over 2m across and contained: pottery sherds from over 30 pots; worked flints; a broken polished axehead; bone pins; antler; a sarsen polissoir; bones of cattle, pigs and sheep; and a piece of human bone! In the base of another was a human cremation. It seemed that the site had been occupied for a few months (or maybe a couple of years) and at that time was a clearing in woodland; the pits were maybe filled in at the time the people moved on, maybe with ceremony.
Pollard and Reynolds describe the discoveries in ‘Avebury- the biography of a landscape’ (2002) and emphasise that these pits are really the first traces of Neolithic activity in the Avebury region.
On the Lansdown sun disc, from volume 11 of the Proceedings of the Bath Nat.Hist. and Antiq. Field Club (1906).
We collected with the greatest care every piece, however small, that could be found. Much of the gold plating, notwithstanding all the precautions we took, was blown away or lost, but enough at any rate remains even now to establish the fact that it was so plated.
So the disc was actually gold-plated bronze (contrary to my misplaced understanding that it was pure gold – still at 6 inches diameter that would have been unlikely..). It was found in one of the barrows about 200yds NW of the ‘Roman Camp’.
archive.org/stream/proceedingsofbat11bath#page/12/mode/1up
This includes a photograph of the fragments.
According volume 52 of the Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine (1947/8) a golden ‘sun disc’ was found at Jug’s Grave. It was about 2 1/2cm in diameter and made from two pieces of gold foil beaten together. It was decorated with an equal-armed cross in the centre, each arm being made of six dots. The cross was enclosed by two circles, the space between the circles having 60 short marks. The marks were impressed from the front, while the crosses and circles were pressed in from the back of the foil. The magazine mentions that a similar disc was found at the fabulous Whitesheet Hill, Mere, by Colt Hoare (conveniently down the road from his house), and this had 80 rim dots. And then of course there was the more elaborate gold ‘sun disc’ found in a Lansdown barrow.
You will be unsurprised to hear that the track you can see beneath you when you sit on Knap Hill*, called Workway Drove, has an ancient name. Its name is mentioned in a 13thC document as ‘Warckweye’, probably deriving from the earlier Saxon ‘Weorc weg’, meaning the road by the stronghold – ie Knap Hill (according to Timperley in his ‘Vale of Pewsey’ 1954).
*the one that eventually becomes the road forming the car park, crossing over the Ridgeway path here.
Dr Thurnham wrote:
During the summer of 1865 I had an opportunity of opening a long barrow of great extent on Fyfield Hill near Pewsey, Wiltshire, locally known as the ‘Giant’s Grave’. A moderately wide trench runs along each side but is not continued round the ends of the barrow. On the natural level near the east end a heap of 3 or 4 skeletons was found, the only perfect skull from which is of a remarkably long and narrow form.. One of the other skulls had been forcibly cleft before burial. The only object of antiquity with the skulls was a finely chipped arrowhead of flint of a beautiful leaf shape. The point of its more tapering extremity was broken off when found. It has been measured 2” in length by 9/10” in breadth.
quoted in ‘The Vale of Pewsey’ by H W Timperley, 1954.
“This landscape is not entirely understood and exhibits a wealth of unique, interesting and puzzling monuments from almost all periods of human history. The importance and significance of this landscape cannot be underestimated. Numerous Bronze Age cairns, singularly, in pairs and in cemeteries, adorn the elevated slopes of Mynydd y Gaer and Foel Fynyddau signifying the importance of this area as a funerary and ritual landscape. ”
from the Neath Port Talbot landscape assessment at
npt.gov.uk/media/9005/spg_landmap_landscape_assessment_2004.pdf
The faithful Page he mounts his steed,
And soon he cross’d green Irthing’s mead,
Dash’d o’er Kirkoswald’s verdant plain,
And Eden barr’d his course in vain.
He pass’d red Penrith’s Table Round,
For feats of chivalry renown’d.
Left Mayburgh’s mound and stones of power,
By Druid’s raised in magic hour,
And traced the Eamont’s winding way,
Till Ulfo’s lake beneath him lay.
A verse from Sir Walter Scott’s poem “The Bridal Of Triermain.”
From ‘The Ancient History of Wiltshire’ by Sir Richard Colt Hoare – with an excerpt from his 1809 journal, giving more details about the downfall of the barrow. Silbury pokers be warned.
The enormous tumulus.. called HATFIELD BARROW, is situated on the East side of the area; it is of a circular form, and has a deep and wide ditch around it, which in winter is nearly full of water, although the soil consists of a greenish sand.* From having been some time in tillage, the height is probably decreased some feet; its elevation about the floor of the barrow (viz. the original soil) is at present twenty two feet and a half..
We began our operations by making a large square opening in the centre, but the tumulus being composed of sand, which continually slipped down, we afterwards carried our section in the form of an inverted cone. When at the depth of about twenty two feet on the east side of the section, and eighteen on the west side, we came to the bottom of the barrow, but from the heavy masses of sand that still continued to slip down, several days elapsed before we could clear the space of about 23 by 24ft of the floor.
... but alas! notwithstanding all our energy and exertions, we were doomed to remain in ignorance respecting the original destination of this gigantic barrow; and fortunately had not (added to our disappointment [sic?]) to regret the loss of several of our labourers, who most providentially escaped an untimely end by having been called off from their work by Mr Cunnington, at a time when the soil of the barrow appeared sound, but proved otherwise by falling in very shortly after the men had quitted their labours...
On revisiting this ground in the autumn of the year 1818, I had the unexpected mortification to find, that the great barrow had been completely levelled to the ground, and no signs remained of its previous existence.
Mortification indeed.
Reading the new-agish ‘Legendary Landscapes’ by J D Wakefield (1999) I came across a photo of the ‘Devil’s Trackway’. Apparently it is a “strange serpentine bank and ditch that leads down the entire facade of the south side of [Knap Hill], descending the most precipitous part of the escarpment into the vale.”
When the Cunningtons excavated Knap Hill in 1908/9 they noticed how it was difficult to see close-up, but showed up at a distance. Mrs C saw it following the curve of the hill at the top and then descending straight down (apparently in WAM 37 – 1912). It was known by her local workers:
From the road up Alton Hill it can be seen well and looks like a wide cart track, and locally it is known as the ‘Devil’s Trackway’. Our labourers knew it well by sight, but appeared to think it a kind of optical delusion that vanished at close quarters, and were much interested when the actual bank was pointed out to them. It was suggested that the bank might be merely the result of levelling to make a pathway, possibly down to the nearest water, but the hill is so steep at this point as to make this very improbable, if not indeed impracticable.
The markings are quite clear on the photos in Wakefield’s book (p25/26), and actually you can see it well on the Viewfinder photo linked to below. (He/she gives the line a serpenty / goddess-umbilical cord style theory, but does anyone know a modern archaeological interpretation? Is it something prehistoric? It’s certainly unusual as it can’t be a non-devilish trackway, the way it’s careering off down that perilous slope. Is there some relevance that the Viewfinder caption says “There is little knowledge why the earthworks on the southern side of the escarpment are missing” – the south side being the very side that the Trackway cuts across?)
***
As MJB explains in the thread here
themodernantiquarian.com/forum/?thread=26574
the trackway actually is the traces of the method used in medieval times to transport quarried chalk down into the valley below.
It may not be out of place to observe that this interesting megalithic monument has been lately ‘restored’ by Mr Manfield, assisted by Mr M Tupper of ‘Proverbial’ celebrity, who have rearranged the stones (for there are seven in all, the largest being about eight feet square, of very hard conglomerate) according to their own sweet will!
ooh – catty.
From: Dorset Folk-Lore
J. J. Foster
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 6, No. 2. (1888), pp. 115-119.
In the 18th century there was a summerhouse on the Giant’s Grave promontory, and in 1806 Colt Hoare wrote: “From the Summer House observe the finest view in Wiltshire.”
(Quoted by K Watts in ‘The Marlborough Downs’ 1993).
This prehistoric cairn is on a steep coastal slope between Minehead and Porlock Bay, overlooking the Bristol channel. Twelve metres in diameter, and about a metre tall, if you look in the dip in the centre you’ll see some of the stones it’s made of. The SM info on Magic suggests the cairn was robbed of stone in antiquity for constructing field banks. But the folklore for the Whit Stones apparently suggests another explanation.
The two stones are on the NE slope of Porlock Common. They’re quite low, both less than a metre. One is decorated with an OS mark and stud, and they both lean a bit. A 13th century document describing the boundaries of the Royal Forest mentions them as the ‘Whitestones’.
Some more stones lie nearby at SS864461, and are believed to be the ‘fif stones’ mentioned in the same document, though there now seem to be three standing and one partly buried. One is inscribed with three sets of initials in an 18th? century hand.
An insight into what those Victorian druids got up to, courtesy of Wirt Sikes:
Midsummer Eve, or St. John’s Eve (June 23rd) is one of the ancient Druidic festivals, still liberally honoured in Wales. The custom of lighting bonfires survives in some of the villages, and at Pontypridd there are ceremonies of a solemn sort.
Midsummer Eve, in 1878, fell on a Sunday. Upon that day the ‘Druids and bards’ at Pontypridd held the usual feast of the summer solstice in the face of the sun. There is a breezy common on the top of a high hill overlooking the town, where stand a logan stone and a circle of upright stones constituting the ‘temple of the Druids’. Here it is the custom of the present-day adherents of that ancient religion, beside which Christianity is an infant, to celebrate their rites ‘within the folds of the serpent,’ a circle marked with the signs of the zodiac.
The venerable archdruid, Myfyr Morganwg, stands on the logan stone, with a mistletoe sprig in his button-hole, and prays to the god Kali, ‘creator of sun, moon, stars and universe’. Then the white-bearded old man delivers a discourse, and new members are initiated into the ‘mysteries’. Occasionally these new members are Americans from over the sea, and they include both sexes.
Large crowds gather to witness the impressive spectacle – a shadow of the ancient rites when from Belenian heights flamed high the sacrificial fires. It was a former belief that these fires protected the lands within their light from the machinations of sorcery, so that good crops would follow, and that their ashes were valuable as a medicinal charm.
From ‘British Goblins’ (1880).
It doesn’t seem an unreasonable spot for a suicide burial, because it is very much on the boundary of things. It is at the point where three parishes meet (Bowerchalke, Martin and Pentridge) – which is actually where three counties meet (Wiltshire, Hampshire and Dorset). It was consequently once the place where three monastic estates met too.
In WAM v55 (1953/4) it is explained that ‘Cotelesburgh’, a place mentioned in a charter of 945, is very probably this spot; burgh implying mound. The barrow that was here is pretty much ploughed out, but “The former existence of a long barrow at Kitt’s Grave is attested by persons whose memories go back to the last century.”
It was probably the site of some gallows too (adding to its unnatural reputation) – the Abbess of Wilton complained of trespass into her woods in the 16th century, and rather uncharitably for an abbess, put up some gallows. The Abbot of Glastonbury wasn’t that impressed, and there is a document of his protest in 1518. When the monasteries were broken up, William 1st Earl of Pembroke got the land. A description of his new estates included “A certain barrow called Gallows Barrow”, presumed to be the same place.
I wasn’t that impressed when I read that with the help of four labourers and his personal servant, Reverend John Skinner dug eight of the ‘Priddy Nine Barrows’ in a week in September 1815. I guess he wasn’t the only one doing speed tombrobbing at the time. But you’d think a Reverend might have more respect for the burial mounds of the dead.
(spotted in ‘Excavations at Camerton’ by WJ Wedlake, 1958)
I found this in the 1911 (v57, p337) Proc. Som. Arch. Soc.
On Faulkland Green.. may be seen several standing stones, some of which were placed there many years ago by a local builder.
Well this may sound like a very vague (’some of which’ and ‘many years’), not that encouraging bit of information. But it does suggest the stones have been there a long time? and were brought from elsewhere? Ok so it’s not that helpful and could be complete swill. But I thought it might be worth sharing.
MAGIC counts eight barrows on this ridge, but according to Shirley Toulson (who confusingly says there are nine) the name ‘five barrows’ has arisen because that is the number visible on the skyline from below.
The White Ladder (at ss732371) is a nearby stone row discovered in 1977 when bracken had been burnt back.*
(’The Moors of the Southwest: 1/Sedgemoor and Exmoor’ 1983)
*on a very fleeting visit in April 2007 I could not see hide nor hair of this row. Disappointing, as on the 1:25000 map the stones are marked as a tempting row of dots. Having said that the vegetation was very tufty and I didn’t have time to spend long looking.
A pointy stone 2m high stands here on the Usk floodplain known as Waen-y-Ffeirad – Moor of the Priest? Maybe the priest refers to St Cybi (after whom Llangybi is named).
There were originally two long barrows here together – as seems the case at a number of other Sussex sites.
The one at TQ363027 is on the crown of Beacon Hill. Although it is up to a metre and half high, it’s been messed about with over the years – one particular indignity being the loss of 12m length from its north end “to improve a cricket ground” in 1863. A burial chamber and other interments were noticed at this time (presumably as they were lobbing the bones into the 19th century equivalent of a skip). Apparently the hill was used for a beacon fire on the approach of the Armada: so it’s a site chosen for its prominence throughout the millennia.
The other long barrow is at TQ364025, but it’s probably only visible as a mark in the grass – the flanking ditches were dug into the chalk beneath. You’ll be pleased to hear that it’s fallen prey to a ‘sport’ related injury too; this time in the name of miniature golf.
Kipling lived in nearby Rottingdean and apparently walked up to Beacon Hill on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee, to watch the bonfire being lit in response to the signal chain of beacons moving along the coast.*
(*He wrote his poem ‘Recessional’ following this night. You can read more in Michael Smith’s article at the Kipling Society website kipling.org.uk/rg_sussex2.htm#top
Other info from the EH records on Magic.
Magic provides the following:
This pretty tiny prehistoric earthwork enclosure has been classified as a ‘Martin Down Enclosure’ (after an example in Dorset) – an unusual type of construction, of which archaeologists have seen fit to classify less than 20 in the country. It’s on the summit of a small rise above the River Avon and (without the trees) would have impressive views over the river and the vale beyond.
There’s an inner bank (barely visible), a ditch (with well defined edges) and an outer bank (up to 1m high) enclosing a rectangularish
area. Perhaps the outer bank was built in medieval times for a livestock pound, as it’s unusual for a prehistoric feature.
It probably dates from the Late Bronze Age, and was probably a domestic settlement.
However, it’s on private land so getting to visit it may not be possible – but as a prehistoric site on the edge of the apparently prehistorically empty area between here and the Marlborough Downs, I thought it was worth including.
From John Stow’s 16th century “Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles”:
Cits Cotihous is of foure flat stones, one of them standing upright in the middle of two other, inclosing the edge sides of the first and the fourth layd flat aloft the other three;... menne may stand on eyther side of the middle stone in time of storme or tempest, safe from wind and rayne, being defended with the bredth of the stones, as having one at their backes, one on eyther side, and the fourth over their heads.
(Sounds like a bus shelter. Quoted by Grinsell in his ‘Ancient Burial Mounds of England’ 1936)
According to his entry in the Wikipedia, “Stow’s antiquarian tastes brought him under ecclesiastical suspicion as a person “with many dangerous and superstitious books in his possession.” In 1568 his house was searched and an inventory was taken of certain books he possessed “in defence of papistry,” but he was apparently able to satisfy his interrogators of the soundness of his Protestantism. A second attempt to incriminate him in 1570 was also without result.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stow
Another view from history: Samuel Pepys visited it and wrote in 1669 “.. Certainly it is a thing of great antiquity and I am mightily glad to see it.” A sentiment we can surely share.
These barrows were excavated by Edward Cunnington in the 1880s: he found some urns containing cremations, which are now in the Dorset County Museum.
They also star in Thomas Hardy’s ‘Return of the Native’ as a crucial meeting point for the characters. At one point the locals build a beacon fire on top of one:
...a pyramid of furze thirty feet in circumference now occupied the crown of the tumulus, which was known as Rainbarrow for many miles round... Perhaps as many as thirty bonfires could be counted within the whole bounds of the district; and as the hour may be told on a clock-face when the figures themselves are invisible, so did the men recognize the locality of each fire by its angle and direction, though nothing of the scenery could be viewed...
The first tall flame from Rainbarrow sprang into the sky, attracting all eyes that had been fixed on the distant conflagrations back to their own attempt in the same kind. The cheerful blaze streaked the inner surface of the human circle—now increased by other stragglers, male and female—with its own gold livery, and even overlaid the dark turf around with a lively luminousness, which softened off into obscurity where the barrow rounded downwards out of sight. It showed the barrow to be the segment of a globe, as perfect as on the day when it was thrown up, even the little ditch remaining from which the earth was dug. Not a plough had ever disturbed a grain of that stubborn soil. In the heath’s barrenness to the farmer lay its fertility to the historian. There had been no obliteration, because there had been no tending.
The name ‘Rainbarrows’ hints at more associations: is it that if you dig into them it will rain? (a frequent enough motif)
Colt Hoare described and interpreted the contents of one of the large Snail Down barrows, bringing to life its occupant:
“The body of the deceased had been burned, and the bones and ashes piled up in a small heap, which was surrounded by a circular wreath of horns of the red deer, within which, and amidst the ashes, were five beautiful arrow-heads cut out of flint, and a small red pebble..
Thus we most clearly see the profession of the Briton here interred. In the flint arrow-heads we recognize his fatal implements of destruction; in the stag’s horns we see the victims of his skill as a hunter; and the bones of the dog deposited in the same grave, and above those of his master, commemorate his faithful attendant in the chase, and perhaps his unfortunate victim in death.”
Hoare wrote in ‘Ancient Wiltshire’ that William Cunnington had found a cremation in this barrow, accompanied by “forty-eight beads, sixteen of which were of green and blue opaque glass, of a long shape, and notched between so as to resemble a string of beads; five were of canal coal or jet; and the remaining twenty seven were of red amber; the whole forming a most beautiful necklace, and such as a British female would not in these modern days of good taste and elegance disdain to wear.”
A wry comment in the 1950 edition of the Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine, which highlights how it is not always ‘riffraff’ which damage archaeological sites; perhaps interesting in light of the present issues at Silbury?
Even under Mr Keiller’s care, it has not been possible to foresee or provide against all forms of attack, and in the distraction of the present moment [the site being signed over to the nation] it is more than ever difficult to protect the stones of Avebury.
Thus within the month that preceded the completion of these protracted negotiations two megaliths were defaced with the bench-mark of the Ordnance Survey! The broad arrow of the symbol carries a suggestion befitting the desecration*.
How are we to be sure that other sign manuals are not appended in future? [Avebury’s] policing, if it comes to that, will not be easy.
*the arrows on prison uniforms, I assume. Good one.
Don’t try this at home, kids.
Aubrey “heard the minister of Aubury say those huge stones may be broken in what part of them you please without any great trouble. The manner is thus: they make a fire on that line of the stone where they would have it to crack; and, after the stone is well heated, draw over a line with cold water, and immediately give a smart knock with a smyth’s sledge, and it will breake like the collets at the glasse-house.”
(quoted in ‘Avebury, the biography of a landscape’ by Pollard and Reynolds (2002), maybe from Aubrey’s ‘Monumenta Britannica’?)
I found this in the Wiltshire Arch Magazine (v59 – 1964). This is from long before the enclosure was spotted on aerial photos. Could it be just wishful thinking that it’s the traces of another really old track focusing in on and passing by the site? Maybe it’s just coincidence, and mere romanticism for me to posit such an ancient origin.
“In July 1962 Mr C N Tilley drew attention to a cropmark showing intermittently in corn for 2 miles and following roughly the 600ft contour line south of Savernake Forest from Durley to Langfield Copse, dropping down near Crofton Pumping Station and then winding up the hillside south of Wilton Brail. According to one of the oldest local inhabitants it was the line taken in his father’s time by shepherds going from Cirencester to Weyhill Fair with their flocks.”
It’s certainly seems a memory of a long distance route (Cirencester to near Andover). How long does a route take to make an appreciable crop mark I wonder? Perhaps not long.
Whatever, Weyhill Fair was a major sheep fair held since... well since a ridiculously long time ago, according to the info at
testvalley.gov.uk/Default.aspx?page=349
a website which also claims Weyhill is the crossing point between the Harrow Way (taking tin from Cornwall to Kent) and ‘the Gold Road’ bringing Irish gold through Holyhead down to Christchurch Bay.
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).
When the Manton Round Barrow was excavated by Maud Cunnington it turned out to be the richest and most elaborate of only a few ‘Wessex-style’ burials in the Avebury area.
An elderly woman’s body had been wrapped in cloth and laid in a crouching position on the ground surface*, with grave goods at her head and feet. Amongst the items found were: a gold-bound amber disc; a biconical shale bead with gold bands; a halberd pendant with a shaft covered in sheet gold; a bronze knife dagger with an amber pommel; a second knife dagger; a shale bead necklace; amber beads; three bronze awls; other beads of shale, chalk, and fossil; and two small ‘accessory vessels’ (list in Pollard & Reynolds’ ‘Avebury – the biography of a landscape’).
Neil Burridge’s “Bronze Age Craft” website has pictures of the fantastic objects, which I believe are on display at the museum in Devizes.
templeresearch.eclipse.co.uk/bronze/wessex_b.htm
(*whether this means a hole was left in the centre of the barrow, or the barrow was built complete over her, I don’t know – I’m sure it would be evident from the excavation)
Perhaps with all this (and the publicity which no doubt surrounded the finds) it’s no wonder the folklore above became associated with the barrow. (One thing confuses me, that the info on MAGIC clearly says ‘no details are known’ about the barrow at this grid reference. Have I got the wrong location?)
- Thank you very much MJB for your clarifications (see above).
(It seems that Baza’s post pre-empts this, but for some reason I hadn’t taken in the human implications of it.)
The deep grooves on the polissoir obviously took years of repetitive axe-polishing to produce, perhaps generations’ worth. Think of all the people who came to this very stone over and over in their lives, as young people, then bringing their children, then their grandchildren – watching how the axes were polished. They must have been thinking about the passing of time, sharing stories about themselves and their ancestors, the land around them, and how the two fitted together. The polissoir would have been a fixed point of reference in a world where people wouldn’t have lived in one place for more than a few seasons or years.
Used as a polissoir in the earlier Neolithic, and containing all this symbolic significance, the stone was eventually stood up on end as a monument in its own right in the later Neolithic. I suppose it then it lost its function as a polissoir, but became purely symbolic of links with the past and the ancestors. Other polisher stones have been incorporated into other monuments relating to the past and the ancestors, as at the West Kennet longbarrow.
(from reading ‘Avebury- the biography of a landscape’ by Pollard and Reynolds, 2002)
Canmore’s record says: “Of the three stones that survive, only the recumbent appears to be in its original position, the W flanker having been re-erected in about 1976 by the father of the present owner, Mr Mackie of Dunnydeer, and the E flanker some years previous to that.”
The Canmore visitors imply that it’s easy to imagine the recumbent ‘facing the wrong way’ – and that it was in the NE part of the circle. But in fact because the SW face of the stone is smoother than its NE face, it was probably in the SW part of the circle.
Someone’s had a go at the West flanker at some point – it has a drill-hole and has probably been deliberately split along its length.
Visited by RCAHMS (JRS, IF), 3 April 1996.
details at
rcahms.gov.uk/pls/portal/newcanmore.details_gis?inumlink=18161
where there is a photo from 1906.
A stone circle used to be at Knowehillock / Drum Divan at NJ193433, but it was removed between 1830 and 1870. One stone was left, but this was eventually moved to the grounds of Carron House in the early 20th century. At some point it was moved again. According to the information on Canmore, the minister of Knockando parish church (in the 1970s) suggested that it had been reused as a grave stone in the Grants of Carron burial enclosure (“The Elchies Tomb”). There are actually two suspicious stones there: one with the date 1934, the other 1940. The church itself will look rather modern – it was burnt down and rebuilt in 1990. They obviously like reuse of stones here – there are two Pictish carved stones in the churchyard wall too.
rcahms.gov.uk/pls/portal/newcanmore.details_gis?inumlink=16062
This sounds like a magical place for a circle (if that’s what it is). Jutting out into Loch Tamanavay (Tamnabhaigh) is a little peninsular, which becomes an island 100ft in diameter during the high spring tides. It has ‘a wave washed shore of stones and boulders’ (according to Canmore’s romantic description). A small 10m diameter grassy mound has many small stones and also 10 larger stones (up to 1m across) protruding from it, including one that Canmore concedes may be a fallen monolith. A 1970s investigation discovered lots of ash just below the mound’s surface – so perhaps we can imagine people sitting there on their island with a roaring fire. Sounds great.
According to Canmore: “A prostrate monolith measuring 1.8m in length by 0.6m in width and 0.4m in thickness”. It was once thought to have been part of a circle but may have been actually part of a cairn. Victorian sources give its local names as ‘The Catholic Chapel’ and ‘The Papish Kirk’. Sounds rather scathing! I’ve read that pockets of Catholicism remained in Aberdeenshire after the Reformation – but maybe not round here, then. Doubtless someone with more knowledge of Scottish religious and social history could interpret further.
It seems fairs were often held at hill forts – here’s an example of what went on at one in 1798.
The King, Queen and all the Princesses, with a number of the Nobility, went to Maiden Castle near Dorchester to see the sports of the country people [..] the sports were announced in the following handbill:-
All persons of jovial, friendly, and loyal disposition are invited to be present at, and to partake of, the undermentioned country sports, which with others, to be declared upon the ground, are intended, if the weather be fine, to be exhibited at Maiden Castle, this day, September 29, at 11 o’clock in the morning, in honour of the Birthday of her Royal Highness the Duchess of Wurtembergh:-
To be played for at cricket, a round of beef: each man of the winning set to have a ribband.
A cheese to be rolled down the hill; prize to whoever stops it.
A silver cup to be run for by Ponies. The best of three heats.
A pound of tobacco to be grinned for.
A barrel of beer to be rolled down the hill; prize to whoever stops it.
A michaelmas-day goose to be dived for.
A good hat to be cudgelled for.
Half a guinea for the best ass in three heats.
A handsome hat, for the boy most expert in catching a roll dipped in treacle, and suspended by a string.
A leg of mutton and a gallon of porter to the winner of a race of 100 yards in sacks.
A good hat to be wrestled for.
Half a guinea to the rider of the ass who wins the best of three heats by coming in last.
A pig; prize to whoever catches him by the tail.
The mind boggles. Especially regarding the beer barrel.
From The Times, Oct 3rd 1798, quoted in Notes and Queries for Somerset and Dorset v5.
This much-worn long barrow is on the crest of the ridge here, overlooking the flat plain to the north. Or it would be, were there probably not trees in the way. There’s also a later round barrow nearby, slightly further up the slope.
Wordsworth wrote a poem about Ossian’s grave. So maybe it was this one he knew – or maybe the Clach Ossian down the road. Who knows. If you read the poem, Wordsworth isn’t sure whether Ossian’s here or not either – it’s the atmosphere of the glen that’s important. So maybe it doesn’t matter.
Glen Almein, or The Narrow Glen.
In this still place, remote from men,
Sleeps Ossian, in the Narrow Glen;
In this still place, where murmurs on
But one meek streamlet, only one:
He sang of battles, and the breath
Of stormy war, and violent death;
And should, methinks, when all was past,
Have rightfully been laid at last
Where rocks were rudely heaped, and rent
As by a spirit turbulent;
Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild,
And everything unreconciled;
In some complaining, dim retreat,
For fear and melancholy meet;
But this is calm; there cannot be
A more entire tranquillity.
Does then the Bard sleep here indeed?
Or is it but a groundless creed?
What matters it? I blame them not
Whose Fancy in this lonely Spot
Was moved; and in such way expressed
Their notion of its perfect rest.
A convent, even a hermit’s cell,
Would break the silence of this Dell:
It is not quiet, is not ease;
But something deeper far than these:
The separation that is here
Is of the grave; and of austere
Yet happy feelings of the dead:
And, therefore, was it rightly said
That Ossian, last of all his race!
Lies buried in this lonely place.
There is a stone with an impressive 80 cup marks on the west side of the fort. Another (with a paltry one cup mark) was found in one of the ditches, and was relocated to St Andrews University archaeological museum.
One of those curious knobbly carved stone balls (this one with four bumps) was also found here, and is now apparently in Brechin Museum, again according to the information on Canmore.
Information from the Canmore record:
The hillock was opened c1856 under the direction of the Earl of Kintore, who lived (I assume) at the nearby Big House of Inglismaldie. He didn’t actually get his hands dirty – a Mr J Glenny, his gardener, did the digging. He said that they found several cists containing bones with “a clay urn containing what appeared to be calcined bones.”
A 1971 visitor spotted some stones and put forward the following interesting idea:
“About 30m NE are three earthfast boulders, 4.0m apart, forming an arc. They are unusual, being an an area generally devoid of large stones. Their purpose is obscure, but they could be the survivors of a stone circle 7 to 8m in diameter.”
When did the mound get its name? Was it assumed a witch was buried there? Or were witches said (or known?) to gather there? Or was it just the Earl of Kintore who fancied something romantic in his garden. The ‘Name Book’ of 1863 says Witch Hillock is “a remarkable looking object...enclosed with ornamental wire fencing”. Lovely. It’s probably not quite such an fancy feature any more.
From the first chapter of ‘Tom Brown’s Schooldays’ by Thomas Hughes (1857)
Right down below the White Horse is a curious deep and broad gully called “the Manger,” into one side of which the hills fall with a series of the most lovely sweeping curves, known as “the Giant’s Stairs.” They are not a bit like stairs, but I never saw anything like them anywhere else, with their short green turf, and tender bluebells, and gossamer and thistle-down gleaming in the sun and the sheep-paths running along their sides like ruled lines.
Online at Project Gutenburg
gutenberg.org/dirs/etext98/tbssd10.txt
From Chapter 1 of Tom Brown’s Schooldays, by Thomas Hughes (1857).
“What is the name of your hill, landlord?”
“Blawing STWUN Hill, sir, to be sure.”
[READER. “Stuym?”
AUTHOR: “Stone, stupid--the Blowing Stone.“]“And of your house? I can’t make out the sign.”
“Blawing Stwun, sir,” says the landlord, pouring out his old ale from a Toby Philpot jug, with a melodious crash, into the long-necked glass.
“What queer names!” say we, sighing at the end of our draught, and holding out the glass to be replenished.
“Bean’t queer at all, as I can see, sir,” says mine host, handing back our glass, “seeing as this here is the Blawing Stwun, his self,” putting his hand on a square lump of stone, some three feet and a half high, perforated with two or three queer holes, like petrified antediluvian rat-holes, which lies there close under the oak, under our very nose. We are more than ever puzzled, and drink our second glass of ale, wondering what will come next.
“Like to hear un, sir?” says mine host, setting down Toby Philpot on the tray, and resting both hands on the “Stwun.” We are ready for anything; and he, without waiting for a reply, applies his mouth to one of the ratholes.
Something must come of it, if he doesn’t burst.Good heavens! I hope he has no apoplectic tendencies. Yes, here it comes, sure enough, a gruesome sound between a moan and a roar, and spreads itself away over the valley, and up the hillside, and into the woods at the back of the house, a ghost-like, awful voice.
“Um do say, sir,” says mine host, rising purple-faced, while the moan is still coming out of the Stwun, “as they used in old times to warn the country-side by blawing the Stwun when the enemy was a-comin’, and as how folks could make un heered then for seven mile round; leastways, so I’ve heered Lawyer Smith say, and he knows a smart sight about them old times.”
We can hardly swallow Lawyer Smith’s seven miles; but could the blowing of the stone have been a summons, a sort of sending the
fiery cross round the neighbourhood in the old times? What old times? Who knows? We pay for our beer, and are thankful.
Online at Project Gutenberg
gutenberg.org/dirs/etext98/tbssd10.txt
From the Diary of Richard Symonds, on Fyfield, 1644.
a place so full of grey pibble stone of great bignes as is not usually seene; they breake them and build their houses of them and walls, laying mosse betweene, the inhabitants calling them Saracens’ stones, and in this parish [deposit] a mile and a halfe in length, they lie so thick as you may go upon them all the way. They call that place the Grey-weathers, because afar off they look like a flock of Sheepe.
Yes he really did say ‘Sheepe’. But I do like the image of him hopping from one stone to another, the whole length of the stones.
quoted in ‘Sarsens’ by H C Brentnall in v51 (1945/6) of Wiltshire Archaeology magazine.
Crofton’s probably better known today for its beam engines and pumping station on the Kennet and Avon canal. But in the Neolithic it was a place with quite different significance. In 1976 the traces of causewayed-enclosure-style interrupted ditches were spotted on an aerial photograph. They completely encompass the village! It’s possible you might be able to see something of them in the S/W stretches? The type of snail shells excavated tell us that at the time it was built the area was a clearing in woodland. The flints found confirm its Neolithic origins.
Apparently it has the largest? area of any known causewayed enclosure (600m across), and is also unusual in that unlike other causewayed enclosures – say, Knap Hill – it was built in a valley. Not only this, the River Dunn (now canalised) actually rose ‘in the vicinity’ of the enclosure, then flowing northeast into the Kennet at Hungerford. [This can’t help but remind me of the proximity of the stream at Marden, but that’s a henge and probably quite a different matter].
Another interesting point is that a Roman – or should that be, pre-Roman – road goes straight through the enclosure’s centre. Another road crosses through at right angles (Avebury style). And following the southeasterly road a short distance brings us directly to a round barrow – surely confirmation of the roads pre-roman credentials?
I’m sure there will be little if anything to see at Crofton. But I hope people won’t mind me mentioning it. It’s really at the eastern end of the Pewsey Vale, which of course contains many other important prehistoric sites.
(see ‘Excavation at Crofton Causewayed Enclosure’ by Sue Lobb, in WAM v88 1995)
WAM 70-71 1975/6 notes that five long barrows lie within 6km of the enclosure, these on the higher ground to the S and SE, flanking the Vale of Pewsey.
Blacker’s Hill is a promontory fort, protected by still impressive earthworks on the north and west, but otherwise defended by steep (and steepened) slopes. There are three entrances, but it’s not clear how many of these are original – the fields have been changed about over the years and there’s been some quarrying too. Perhaps there was just one to the NE. Springs and a stream run along the south of the fort, and there are various barrows nearby to the north. The site’s been excavated and ‘geophysed’ – you can read about it and the nearby barrows
here at the Somerset Historic Environment Record. A 1950s excavation found traces of smelted iron in one of the ditches, and the geophysics detected several enclosures, linear boundaries, roundhouses and pits: different phases of the fort’s use. Sounds like a busy community – something to think about if you choose to visit.
To confirm your suspicions, Juamei:
..the members ascended the hill, crossed the vallum and ditch of the camp and from the top saw before them one of the finest views anywhere to be seen on the Mendips. On the south the whole plain of central Somerset, backed by the Quantock Hills; Glastonbury Tor in the foreground. Breandown and the Severn on the North, the Chalk Downs and Stourton Towers on the East. Crossing the centre of the camp to the opposite side an equally fine view of the country over which they had travelled in the morning, from the Lansdown hills to the Mendips before them; the late storm having cleared the atmosphere, rendered the distant hills well defined.
From an excursion in the Somersetshire Arch. Soc. Proc. (Bath Branch) 1907.
There is apparently a carving at the entrance of the fogou – you can see it on the CAER site here:
caer.co.uk/index_files/CAER/carving.htm
It was noticed by Dr EB Ford, who excavated the site in 1957. The Caer logo is based on the carving – interpreted as a person holding a staff and a snake. It looks rather ambiguous in the photo though – but perhaps you’ve seen it yourself?
From W Hal’s ‘Compleat History of Cornwal, general and parochial’ (1702), quoted by Jo May in his ‘Fogou’ (1996).
[you see] the downfalls of a castle or treble entrenchment in the midst of which is a hole leading to a vault underground. How far it extends no man living now can tell, by reasons of the damps or thick vapours that are in it, for as soon as you go an arrow flight in it or less your candles will go out or extinguish themselves for want of air.
from the RCAHMS website:
A Mr K Bowman and a Mr K Waldron have noted four cup-marked stones in a field clearance heap to the S of Crosswood Reservoir. One stone has double spirals, and a cup-mark with emanating chips and pecked edges. A further cup and ring-marked stone was found on top of the clearance heap. The local shepherd indicated that the stones had been put there some 15 years ago when the field was ploughed.
Information from letter from K Waldron, 1990.Towards the W end of a patch of recently cleared ground, there is a pile of field-gathered boulders. Four of the boulders are decorated with motifs which include spirals, rings and cup-marks. The stones were gathered together in about the mid-1970’s.
Visited by RCAHMS (JBS) 9 November 1990.