Aubrey visited Stanton Drew in the summer of 1664, but was unable to reach the stones because the field was full of ripening corn. He recorded that many of the stones had been removed and smashed during the previous few years by farmers covetous of extra land.
Leslie Grinsell suggests this explains ‘the remarkable circumstance’ of the lack of barrows in the area: that there may have been some but were ploughed out.
(in Grinsell’s ‘Archaeology of Wessex’)
I was reading an article from WANHM (v95, 2002 – a missing drawing and an overlooked text: silbury hill archive finds) – sounds like the hole was never filled in properly. Does this mean the structure has been precarious – for centuries? Is this why EH don’t feel they have to do anything immediately?
This is what I gleaned from the article:
The vertical shaft was mined in 1776, the brainchild of the Duke of Northumberland. A horizontal tunnel was later mined at the base of the hill in 1849. The Rev. WC Lukis was on hand to draw this one, but he also included a dotted line dipping like a cone into the top of the hill, indicating the entrance to the 1776 shaft was open – open to a similar depth to that which opened up in 2000?
A Dr Merewether visited with Lukis, and he recorded that there were mounds of soil on top of the hill that the miners from 1776 hadn’t bothered to throw back in. You can see heaps of soil on one of Hoare’s illustrations from 1821 and in a late 19thC print (these are in the article). A Major Allen took some aerial photos in the 1930s and these show the heaps too – and a dip in the ground next to them. So it seems the hole has been present to varying depths since the 1770s, and was only filled in to near the surface level in 1936. However, the filling material gradually disappeared.
In 1963 Silbury was capped with chicken wire, to prevent what was perceived to be rabbit damage. Later this wire (covered in soil and grass) actually hampered some surveys that were being done to check the state of the hole. ‘The capping has now disappeared from view’.
Extracts from a note-book by Sir R C Hoare.
(Wilts Arch and Nat Hist Mag vol 22)
Sat. Oct 10, 1807.
Mild and fine day. Went in a chaise to Marden, a village on the right of the great road leading to Devizes. Here there is a very singular earthen work that has been unnoticed by antiquaries. From the circumstances of the ditch being on the inside, and the vallum without, we may safely pronounce it to have been a religious, not a military work. Its form, however, is not circular like that of Abury, but very irregular...Curiosity is not alone confined to this outward and stupendous vallum. The interior of the arc contains two very interesting fragments of antiquity. A large tumulus, the third, I think, in size after Silbury and the Castle Hill at Marlborough. This tumulus is named in the map Hatfield barrow. The etymology of which, as given me by a native farmer, was derived from the unproductive quality of the soil, which occasioned it being called Hatefield.
This tumulus is not placed in the centre of the area, but towards the northern angle of it, or rather north-western. As our operations on it are not yet terminated I can give no account either of its contents or destination. From the moisture of the substratum of sand I have much doubt if we shall be able effectually to explore it.
Our workmen had a most providential escape, by being taken off to another spot by Mr Cunnington, when during their absence several ton weight of earth fell in, at a time when the floor of the barrow was nearly uncovered.
On the south-west side of the enclosure is a low circular work – very similar to one we know near Southley Wood [here?], Warminster – it is intersected by a hedge.
The manoeuvres of the day being interrupted by the heavy fall of earth, I left Marden and ascended the chalk hills...
...Returned to Everley gratified and benefitted, as usual, by my ride amongst the Britons.”
Despite the unpromising (unprehistoric) start I still felt intrigued, and later found an article about it in the Wilts.ANHM volume 94 (2001).
The authors Semple and Langlands describe the Tump as a long low earthwork running NE-SW, on a low natural rise next to the Pewsey-Manningford Bruce road, and close to the boundary of the hundred of Swanborough.
The earliest mention of the wood it which it stands is 1840, so perhaps it was previously on open ground. It’s mutilated condition apparently has nothing to do with the work of antiquarians (for once) – perhaps it’s partly the work of the trees and the road – they certainly don’t make it any easier to decipher. The authors even suggest it could have been two mounds once.
It’s obviously connected with stories about the Anglo Saxons, and the name itself comes from Swan + Beorh = barrow/mound of the common people. It was a meeting place for a Hundred. The road that runs by it has been shown to have existed since at least AD987 (Pewsey was an important settlement in the 9th century too).
However, could it be older? The prehistoric mounds at Mutlow and Knightlow were reused as later meeting places, so could this be the case here?
The authors weren’t making any firm conclusions, but hinted that the way the mound butts up against the road rather suggests the road cuts through the mound. Which suggests the mound is older than the road (but by how much?).
I found an account at
stonehenge-avebury.net/tourglos.html
of a Megalithic Society tour of South Gloucestershire in 2000, and although they didn’t actually visit the chambers, the way the piece is written suggests that someone had visited them in the recent past.
It says: “They are built into the steep hillside of the garden of a house in Lower Avening (at ST 879983), but visits are best left for winter. Permission to inspect is readily obtained.” [by the look of the map though, there aren’t any houses at this grid reference]
I’m not saying baza’s informant was lying. But you know how people frequently don’t know what’s on their own doorsteps. I just want to hold out some hope they’re still there somewhere.
More on the doubts about the site, gleaned from the article ‘A family chapel.. to an Archdruid’s Dwelling’ by David, Field & others in WANHM vol 96 (2003).
The NMR officially places the site at SU09367552. So why was it thought to be here? and why not?
We have to go back to Stukeley’s original description of the site, in his ‘Abury’.
“At Winterbourne Bassett, a little North of Abury, in a field NW of the church, upon elevated ground, is a double circle of stones concentric, sixty cubits in diameter. The two circles are near one another, so that one may walk between. Many stones have of late been carry’d away. West of it is a single, broad, flat, and high stone, standing by itself. And about as far northward from the circle, in a ploughed field, is a barrow set round with or rather composed of large stones. I take this double circle to have been a family-chapel, as we may call it, to an archdruid dwelling near thereabout, whilst Abury was his Cathedral.”
Hoare later used Stukeley’s 1743 description to trace the site, and plumped for a spot which was consequently accepted by the OS for their maps: the one on the NMR. Hoare didn’t describe what he found – neither the number of stones nor their positions. He just said there were ‘a few inconsiderable stones’ remaining.
As Stukeley said, people were always carting off stones and there are sarsens in the local church and manor for example, which could be from the circle (or just from the fields). So if Hoare found just a few stones he might have assumed that that was all that was left, and that yes he was in the right place.
AC Smith and the Rev. WC Lukis looked in 1880, finding only 3 or 4 stones lying on the surface. By probing about they found about a dozen more. They also strangely found a central stone, unmentioned by Stukeley. And the circle seemed to be much bigger than 60 cubits. And then there was an outlying stone.. It all seems a bit dodgy in retrospect. They didn’t find any stones actually standing.
Geophys. studies were done in 1998. They confirmed the buried stones found by Smith and Lukis, but also found a whole load more, which were distributed well beyond the ‘circles’ and apparently quite randomly. There was nothing really to convince of a prehistoric stone circle. The stones are probably natural sarsens.
Stukeley actually made a sketch of the site, now at the Bodleian library (it is reproduced in the magazine). It does differ a bit from his later description – he wrote on the 1724 sketch that it had a 100ft diameter which is rather bigger than 60cubits (and if you want to be picky, says it has 60 stones though he only drew 49). However, the number and arrangement of the stones make it look like a proper circle, a manmade thing rather than a natural collection of sarsens.
Crucially, he drew the landscape in the background – it has the church at Avebury, Silbury Hill, and Tan Hill in it. None of these are visible from the scheduled site. It’s possible he was tweaking the truth to be artistic. But perhaps such an explanation isn’t necessary – if you move just 50m south, to the summit of the ridge (SU 09307535), you can see this panorama.
Unfortunately today there’s nothing to actually see there. By 1840 the field was being used for crops, and the circle was probably long gone even by then. But – at least if the site can be surveyed one day with geophys., perhaps some evidence of the stone settings can still come to light, and we’ll really know if this is the right spot.
Whilst footling about in the library I found a note on the 1999 excavation of the churchyard mound in the Wiltshire Arch. + Nat. Hist. Mag v94. It said that the barrow and the church are both aligned and positioned on a further ‘substantial but low’ east-west earthwork which extends beyond the churchyard. The article didn’t speculate on the age or purpose of this earthwork.
I also looked up the original excavation, carried out by Cunnington in the 1880s (same magazine, vol 22). He was rather hoping that the barrow was going to contain a wealth of treasure, like the ‘viking’ (anglo saxon) finds dug up at Taplow only a couple of years previously – that was a barrow in a churchyard too, so you can see why he got his hopes up.
The article reveals that the barrow was used time and again for burials over the centuries.
He describes the barrow being in the unconsecrated NE corner of the churchyard (actually belonging to King’s College Cambridge, weirdly). It was 11ft high and ‘much mutilated’. Digging in he found 20+ skeletons about 3ft down, with their heads to the west. They were ‘evidently not Ancient British’ – I suppose they would be Christian, all ready to sit up and face Jerusalem come judgement day? Cunnington suggested they were medieval.
Near the centre at 5ft depth was a male skeleton in a fir coffin; this he suggested a Saxon date for.
At 7ft he found the burnt bones of an adult wrapped in a cloth, and placed on a plank of wood with an (unburnt) black flint knife. A small clay vessel was about a yard away.
The floor of the barrow was still 4 more feet down – on this he found wood ashes scattered around, with traces of cremations and perhaps a cremation pit. I suppose both these areas of finds are from the Bronze Age.
A finely made leaf arrow-head of dark flint was found just below the turf on the surface of the barrow. He also mentions that ‘several interesting flint implements and rubbers of sarsen stone were turned up in the course of the excavations’.
Ah, imagine being the wealthy 17th century owners of Lodge Park. Not only have you got an up-to-the-minutely stylish house, you’ve got huge amounts of land and a genuine long barrow on them. Who needs a folly?
The site has been pretty protected certainly since then, as it’s just been under pasture. On the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map of 1882, it was described by Witts in 1883; we can see from his description that the monument’s condition hasn’t deteriorated since then. It probably has never been excavated.
The stones at the end of the mound are probably the remains of a cotswold-stylee false entrance. OGS Crawford certainly liked it: “This is the finest long barrow I have ever seen; it is certainly the most perfect specimen in Gloucestershire, and should be left exactly as it is and never excavated, in order that posterity may be able to see at least one unmutilated long barrow,” he wrote in his 1925 ‘The Long Barrows of the Cotswolds’.
quote taken from Celia Haddon’s website , and excavation details from the smr.
There are actually two long barrows very close to each other here.
Lamborough Banks itself is the northernmost and overlooks a dry valley. It’s a ‘cotswold-severn’ type which had v-shaped horns of drystone walling and a false entrance at the south end. It was excavated in 1854 by Canon Samuel Lysons who also found a stone-lined chamber with a single burial. The site’s in rather a dishevelled state now but at least it’s in its own walled area.
The other barrow is much shorter and orientated in a different direction. Lysons excavated this one too, and found an unusual circular underground drystone walling chamber. It’s in the shape of a beehive and has three stone ‘seats’, above which are three niches, and the wall is corbelled to an entrance at the top, 2m from the floor. The chamber was backfilled, although apparently the top few courses of stone are still visible. It’s an unusual feature in a long barrow, although according to the SMR similar structures have been recorded elsewhere on the Cotswolds.
(details from the smr on MAGIC)
There is quite a barrow cemetery here – though I expect there’s little to see on the ground. Though there has been some ploughing, the interesting thing is that the barrows are largely intact, protected under the layers of fen peat and clays that have been lain down over them. So underneath these layers the barrows are very nicely preserved, including their surrounding ditches. The westernmost barrow was partly excavated in 1985, and showed that it was started as a low ovoid mound in the Middle to Late Neolithic, and was modified over the years, being used up to the middle of the Bronze age.
The SMR on MAGIC also mentions a Neolithic causewayed enclosure about a kilometre to the south, which perhaps was a focus for these barrows.
There is also an alignment of three Neolithic longbarrows to the north east, which are similarly well preserved by the marshy and silty conditions of the fen. They were located on gravel terraces or islands of the Great Ouse, which would have flowed nearer to the barrows in prehistoric times.
The round banks at Belsar’s Hill rise up to 4m high – but although this site was originally an Iron Age fort, it was reused in (perhaps) William the Conquerer’s time, and also in medieval times [info from SMR on MAGIC].
A green lane runs through the centre of Belsar’s Hill – the Aldreth Causeway. It runs through the marshes to the Isle of Ely. It seems reasonable to suppose this route is at least as old as the original fort? Dyer’s ‘Southern England’ says that Bronze Age artifacts have been found beside this causeway. The surrounding marshes would have surely put off anyone from sneaking up to this fort by any route other than the causeway.
Wor Barrow long stands near to the crest of Handley Down. It would have been truly impressive when it was built around 5000 years ago: the 45m long mound was 3m high and surrounded by a hefty 4m deep ditch. At the SE end three causeways interrupted the ditch. There was a causeway at the opposite end too. Pitt Rivers excavated the ditch and the mound in the 1890s. He found a couple of burials in the ditch, and six under the mound, in what was once a rectangular timber structure (a mortuary enclosure?), which had then been covered by a circular turf mound. He also found that people from the Romano-British era had reused the mound, as there were some later burials in the upper layers.
Perhaps bizarre to our thinking, P-R then decided that the best thing to do would be to terrace the earth from the SW side of the mound, and turn the place into a kind of stage to create ‘an amphitheatre for games or other amusements and exhibitions.’ Hey, just reuse of the site I guess. It should have a nice view after all. But it does sound like he more or less demolished the place. However, overall, the excavation was really the first ever ‘scientific’ barrow excavation and P-R used lots of new approaches – for example, the use of photos taken from a tower. He also pioneered experiments investigating the weathering of the exposed ditches. (In fact, anyone doubting that the man was a top chap should go to the Pitt-Rivers Museum in Oxford, where they will be delighted by his eclectic collection of assorted cultural ‘stuff’ from all over the world.)
There are two bowl barrows (probably with Neolithic origins) next to the Wor Barrow – this is interesting to have a number of Neolithic barrows in such proximity, and a large, later barrow cemetery nearby on Oakley Down.
(info from the EH SMR)
Ronald Hutton (in his 1991 ‘Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles’) mentions that one of the male skeletons found had an arrowhead embedded in his side. Which rather indicates that people could be just as nasty to each other in the Neolithic as they would ever be. Unless it was an accident, mate, I thought you were a wild boar.
Like West Kennett longbarrow, the long barrow on Kitchen Hill has oolitic limestone in its facade which must have been brought all the way from the Frome area.
Its name might come from the Anglo Saxon ‘Crechen’ which means summit, as Kitchen Hill is part of the dramatic line of hills that suddenly sprout up at the northern edge of the Pewsey plain. The barrow itself isn’t on the summit but is more on the crest as seen from below.
(p107, Burl’s ‘Prehistoric Avebury’)
The big stones of the chambers and the smaller ones making up the core of the mound are from the Marlborough Downs. But the (ton weight of) drystone walling of the facade is made from oolitic limestone and calcareous grit – which must have been brought from Frome and Calne, 25 and 7 miles away, respectively.
(in Aubrey Burl’s ‘Prehistoric Avebury’)
Ba’l Hill has been dated to the Neolithic, so it is unusual in that it is a very early round barrow. Like the extremely close Willy Howe it lies right next to the Gypsey Race stream. Unlike Willy Howe it did contain burials. (Burl suggests that Ba’l Hill (or Wold Newton, as he refers to it) is another Silbury-style mound with no primary burial, but the EH record disagrees, as seen below).
According to the Scheduled Monument EH record, the mound was investigated by J R Mortimer in 1894. He found the cremated remains of a child at its centre and the skeletons of 3 adults, a child and a young adult on the original ground surface. Another skeleton of a woman was accompanied by a newly-made flint arrowhead.
There was also a pig skull and bones, and fragments from Neolithic food vessels. Also discovered were bones from dogs, wolves, grouse, Irish elk, goats, oxen, and deer, as well as frogs, toads, and water voles. Quite an intriguing menagerie, you’ll agree. Were they all things people had eaten or could some be animals whose remains had been there already naturally? (and isn’t an Irish Elk one of those extinct beasts with the ludicrous antlers?). Or maybe some are neither, but bones/meat deliberately placed inside for some ‘ritual’ reason. Hmm.
Aubrey Burl (in ‘Prehistoric Avebury’) hypothesises that Willy Howe is another Silbury Hill or Duggleby Howe – a Neolithic mound with no burial, and with significance other than a mausoleum (the burial mentioned by fitzcoraldo below was a later interment). It was trenched into by Canon Greenwell in 1886, who like Lord Londesborough before him found no bones, but did find a rock-cut pit. Greenwell was an enthusiastic digger, “a clergyman whose methods have led archaeologists to wish that he had used his knees more often in prayer and less frequently in excavation.”
Samuel Pepys visited the area in 1668 and described the sarsens as ‘Stones of considerable bigness, most of them certainly growing out of the ground.‘
(quoted in Aubrey Burl’s ‘Prehistoric Avebury’)
The idea that stones grew in the ground was probably fairly widespread? as you can see from the Growing Stone in Wales, and the East Anglian Blaxhall Stone.
In Aubrey Burl’s book ‘Prehistoric Avebury’ there is a reproduction of a plan made by John Aubrey of the Kennett Avenue. He drew an angled stone just outside of the main avenue – you have to look closely at the plan or you overlook it as a bit of dirt. But JA spoke about such an anomaly, and he believed it to be a cove. He described it as being south of Avebury and near to the Kennett, which on the plan it kind of is. People thought he was confused with the Avebury cove, but you certainly couldn’t describe the cove within Avebury in those terms.
There was no trace of this angled stone left by 1723, but it’s thought it was about SU11016881 – just about where the road intersects the avenue and there are some more stones (further south than the layby mentioned in the fieldnotes). In 1989 some geophysicists did their stuff there, but the survey showed nothing.
Stukeley (cheeky man) nicked the idea of there having been a Kennett Cove, and presented it as his own. But later he changed his mind on the matter – and now Aubrey’s map has come to light, it seems that Aubrey will now get the credit again for his own theory.
If there was a cove, then it would probably (like the Avebury circle cove) have been built very early on in the area’s history. It would have predated the avenue itself. Burl suggests the presence of the avenue cove could explain the irregular path of the avenue, or indeed of the avenue’s existence at all, in that it was built to link an older holy place with the main Avebury complex. But then surely the avenue was linking the Sanctuary up with the Avebury cove anyway (picking up the proposed Avenue cove en route?). Anyway, it’s another possible monument to try and fit into the overall complex of sites...
When the barrow and its mound were excavated by a Professor Buckman in 1862 and Mrs Clifford in 1937 they found the remains of at least 13 human skeletons as well as Neolithic pottery. Other interesting objects interred were ‘a piece of bone carved perhaps in the shape of a human figure’, three shiny quartz pebbles, and a perforated dog whelk shell. Red ochre was also found, which must have been brought from a least a dozen miles away – the use of this bright pigment in burials is known from around the world, presumably for its symbolic association with blood.
(list in Burl’s ‘Prehistoric Avebury’)
The centre of this 40m long barrow was dug into by antiquarians in 1880, where they found a chamber containing ‘certain black matter’ (though no mention of any bones). Could it, like Beckhampton long barrow perhaps was, be symbolic rather than a tomb?
(Burl: Prehistoric Avebury, p102)
This earthen longbarrow is only 90m from the River Wylye, as it winds its way along the valley. Cunnington partially excavated it in the 19th century, and found beneath the mound a cist of chalk blocks. Inside were an ox skull and a small deer antler (perhaps the latter was a pick?). Ox skulls were also found under the Beckhampton long barrow outside Avebury.
(info from Burl’s ‘Prehistoric Avebury’ (p103) and the Scheduled Monument record)
I discovered that the celebrated 17th century antiquarian John Aubrey was born at Kington St Michael, only a few miles from Lugbury Longbarrow. He described its blind entrance as ‘A great Table-stone of bastard free stone leaning on two picked perpendicular stones.‘
(The ‘bastard free stone’ is apparently the Inferior Oolite found around Bath. This can be full of holes naturally I believe – like the ones on Bathampton Down – so perhaps that partially illuminates presence of the holes in the Lugbury stones).
He added: ”Neer to this stone was a little round Barrow, before it was ploughed away since Ao Dm 1630.” He also mentioned that there were four separate chambers along the long barrow’s south side.
- quotes in Aubrey Burl’s 2nd ed of ‘Prehistoric Avebury’ (p107)
The Beckhampton longbarrow (as I understand it from reading Aubrey Burl’s ‘Prehistoric Avebury’) is Really Old – like West Kennett longbarrow it is older than the henge or the stones of the circle (about 3200BC).
It was built in the late Neolithic, when agriculture was actually declining and the forests were starting to return somewhat. Excavations have shown that the barrow was built on grassland, not ploughed land. Although the mound was solid with no chambers, there was a framework of wicker partitions to hold alternate layers of chalk and black earth. A regular quarry ditch lay to the south, with a more irregular one found on the north side. Aubrey suggests that these late Neolithic barrows didn’t have to be tombs like the older one at West Kennett, because they acted as ceremonial centres, just symbolic of the ‘clan’. No human bones were found at all when it was excavated (apart from a much later interment in its side). However, three ox skulls were found, and they were buried, in a straight line, along the axis of the monument.
It is thought that the stones of the Cove were the first stones erected inside Avebury’s circle. There were originally three stones, arranged to form an open-topped, three sided structure. Aubrey Burl explains in ‘Prehistoric Avebury’ how coves are ‘monumental versions of tomb forecourts and entrances’ – which makes sense when you think of Lugbury, which is quite local. When the cove was built the chambered tombs were no longer being used. It’s possible that bones of ancestors were brought to the cove instead as part of rites there. About a dozen coves are known countrywide, which are similarly upstanding and are open in one direction, usually the east. Avebury cove faces NE, towards the fairly bland skyline of Hackpen Hill, perhaps symbolically facing the general direction of the midsummer sunrise?
The third, northernmost stone of the Avebury cove fell in 1713. The other two were becoming more wobbly and have recently been made safe, as you can read about on Pete and Alison Glastonbury’s website. Their hugeness surprised the archaeologists, as you can see here: themodernantiquarian.com/post/13206
As Burl says, such enormous stones must have been carefully searched for, required huge effort to transport, and in fact they required sarsen blocks and cobbles in their trenches to provide extra support for their huge weight. Because of their size they had to be set reasonably far apart, to leave enough room to lift and position them.
Stukeley reported that “The vulgar call them the devil’s brand-irons from their extravagent bulk, and chimney-like form”
Stukeley on the Sanctuary:
“This Overton-hill, from time immemorial, the country people have a high notion of. It was (alas, it was!) a very few years ago, crown’d with a most beautiful temple of the Druids. They still call it the sanctuary... The loss of this work I did not lament alone; but all the neighbours (except the person that gain’d the little dirty profit) were heartily griev’d for it. It had a beauty that touch’d them far beyond those much greater circles in Abury town.”
Perhaps the ‘Sanctuary’ was in fact a title made up by one of Stukeley’s romantic antiquarian friends. He wasn’t beyond a bit of exaggeration (and more than once took something Aubrey had said and pretended he’d thought of it first).
(quote from Aubrey Burl’s ‘Prehistoric Avebury’, 2nd ed. p133)
There are two Bronze Age round barrows up here, but Aubrey Burl describes the one Neolithic barrow in his ‘Prehistoric Avebury’ (p128) and it’s rather interesting.
A circular ditch was initially dug to mark the site out. A timber vault, open to the ENE sunrise was constructed, and in it laid a skeleton. The skeleton was already ancient, and had laid in the ground somewhere for more than a few decades (this was inferred from its brittleness). The man had had severe arthritis, and very worn teeth with a number of abcess cavities. Perhaps, Burl speculates, the man was a respected ancestor, who was brought from an old site to this new one, to imbue it with some kind of potency.
Later, the bones were strewn around the outside of the vault in (a series of?) rituals. The bones of the man’s left foot remained inside the vault.
Later, earth and clay were mixed with a collection of broken pot pieces, charcoal, hundreds of flint flakes, a bone pin, pig bones, and oxen, sheep, deer, beaver and bird bones, and these formed a core to the chalk and rubble barrow which was then formed over the top in a kidney shape. Perhaps these things (that we might consider ‘rubbish’) were symbolic gifts: food and utensils which could be used in the afterlife? Maybe.
This long barrow lies in Standish Wood above Randwick. It was dug into in the 1880s by a Mr G B Witts, when it had two cotswold-severn style horns and a single corbelled chamber with a mass of bones inside. He also found some skeletons just outside the south-west end of the barrow which he took to be ‘slaves buried with their chief’. The aptly named owner, Mrs Barrow, demanded that the walls and chambers exposed should be covered up again to protect them from damage, which they were.
There are also some later round barrows and other earthworks on the hill.
Nearby lie areas (now of the outskirts of Stroud) called ‘Puckshole’ and ‘Paganhill’, should you think this relevant in illuminating past beliefs.
(arch. info from James Dyer’s regional archaeology of the Cotswolds and Upper Thames)
Just to add some more detail – The longbarrow at Cow Common is (rather interestingly?) made of small stones, and it is oriented east-west, with views to south and east. It was your typical Cotswold Severn longbarrow design, with a false entrance in a forecourt flanked by extensions of the mound. The mound was surrounded by a dry stone wall. It had two actual chambers: the NE chamber had remains of 3 skeletons, with five more just outside. The second chamber 10m from the eastern end contained two adults and one infant, and two flint flakes. James Dyer’s ‘Southern Britain’ mentions some Neolithic pottery spoons too (surely very unusual?). One of the chambers was oval with a carefully corbelled roof. A Roman coin was also found at the western end of the longbarrow – was it just lost, or deliberately buried for some reason?
The area was reused later, or perhaps in constant use, as the longbarrow became surrounded by the ten round barrows in the barrow cemetery. Five form an overlapping row to the west and were opened in 1874. The most southerly had a cist burial and two urn burials. The second had a beehive-shaped chamber inside, approached by a long 6m passage – other corbelled chambers are known from this area of Gloucestershire so perhaps it was a local burial ‘fashion’ for a while? The other three barrows in the row held cremations that seem to have been interred in cloths, secured with bone pins.
(info from Dyer’s book above, and the MAGIC website)
This barrow was ‘discovered’ by G B Witts in 1880, and he excavated it the same year.
archive.org/stream/transactionsbris05bris#page/200/mode/2up
He noted that the south east end curved in slightly forming the horns characteristic of the Severn-Cotswold longbarrows. It was also surrounded
by a dry stone wall. The `horns’ stood to a height of approximately 1m and between them were two upright stones forming a false doorway. There was no chamber at the south east end, but it was found 25m from the southern `horn’. Here there was an entrance through the wall 0.6m wide. A passage 2m long led to the chamber, which contained about 20 skeletons. One of the skeletons, that of a young woman, was placed at the end of the chamber on a semi-circle of flat stones, and the remains of a baby were nearby.
By 1920 the surrounding wall had all but disappeared, though you can see something of it still. The remains of the `horns’ are now just a depression, and there’s a great big dip in the top where the excavation took place.
The barrow lies in Buckle Wood, so it might be a bit camouflaged today – but I think at 150 feet long you might spot it.
(info from the scheduled monument record and James Dyer’s ‘Cotswolds and Upper Thames’ regional archaeology booklet)
These three burial chambers were (for some reason) moved to this site in 1806 after the excavation of a long barrow south east of the nearby hamlet of Nag’s Head.
Two of them are roofed with single capstones and have short passages as approaches. They are particularly interesting because chamber ‘III’ has an artificially cut porthole entrance – probably for popping your ancestors’ bones in and out with – and chamber ‘II’ has part of what might be one: it has semi-circular notches at the entrance.
(info from James Dyer’s ‘Discovering Regional Archaeology: The Cotswolds and the Upper Thames’ 1970 – I trust the chambers are still there.)
Following the revelation that they are not :(
I tracked down some more information at a transcription of George Witts’s Archaeological Handbook of Gloucestershire (c1880) (see link in the general Cotswolds section). He says that the chambers were moved to a ‘grove in the rectory garden’ – does this shed any light? Or is that where you were looking, baza? If they’ve just been lost altogether and aren’t in any museum that would be ridiculous considering the apparent rarity of them with their portholes.
The longbarrow Wysefool mentions near Wescot Wood contained a burial interred with some perforated seashells (perhaps a necklace then?). Far from home for some seashells. I wonder where they came from and what they meant to their owner? Had they ever been to the sea themselves?
(info from James Dyer’s ‘Discovering Regional Archaeology: The Cotswolds and the Upper Thames’ 1970)
According to magic, the site has been dated to 3415 BC, “currently the earliest date for a long barrow in Britain”.
Codford Circle is a ‘hilltop enclosure’ on the crest of a hill. It dates from the transition between the Bronze Age and the early Iron Age, and probably had a agricultural function, maybe for granaries. Hilltop enclosures are very unusual, with less than 30 recorded and only in England (though some may have been later been developed into more defensive sites, so disguising their origins). Most are found on the chalk downland of Wessex, Sussex and the Cotswolds, with a few in Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire.
Colt Hoare visited it and recorded that it was known as ‘Oldbury Camp’ locally. The 1:25000 OS map however has the alternative name ‘Wilsbury Ring’.
It encloses eight acres of a flat hilltop, and has views over the Wylye valley.
(from EH’s record of scheduled monuments and ‘Exploring Ancient Wiltshire’ by George Osborn 1982)
This named barrow is, according to the NMR, a ‘prominent landmark’ (it’s right by the road so should be easy to spot – though I’ve been along here many times and never had my eyes open for it) and stands “to a height of 2.6m with a maximum diameter of 35m. A hollow on the eastern side is thought to be the result of an unrecorded ‘antiquarian’ excavation. A letter from W G Clarke to Cyril Fox, dated 1923, stated that `a cinerary urn has been found there and broken up’.”
The hillfort sounds like a Prehistory Themepark for the Victorian era. A special railway from Brighton deposited you at the foot of the hill, from where you could get another steep railway up the fort. Up to 30,000 people visited a DAY in its heyday. Attractions also included two bandstands, an observatory, a camera obscura, fairground rides, a switchback railway, and an aerial cableway across the combe.
There’s still a carpark, toilets, a hotel?? and undoubtedly somewhere to buy an icecream.
Despite being extensively messed about, as a large univallate hillfort it’s still ‘of national importance’ according to the NMR.
This long barrow is 200ft long and 75ft wide, flanked by ditches 15ft wide and still 3ft deep. The 6ft high mound was crowned with a wooden gibbet, and might still be, because the original has been replaced many times over the years for some morbid reason.
(figures from Dyer’s ‘Discovering regional archaeology – the cotswolds and upper thames)
Pitt-Rivers excavated the site in 1881/2 and deduced that the fort was developed in the early Iron Age (and added to later). The fort cuts off a promontory in true defensive style, but elsewhere on the hill there are a number of round barrows, surely of an earlier date. The NMR does not yet list any details on the site.
Oldbury was originally constructed in the Bronze Age as a hill top enclosure with a bank and ditch, though it was enlarged in the Iron Age to form a hillfort. As well as the fort there is a Bronze age bowl barrow which was partially excavated in 1858 – they found a burial urn inverted over burnt bones in a cist, and next to this a flint dagger. To the west there is a 12m wide boundary ditch and banks, which the Listed Monuments record describes as a Bronze Age cross dyke.
Cow Down does have an example of a defended Iron Age settlement, and archaeologists have found the remains of round houses there, together with artifacts relating to everyday life, like chalk loom weights.
The hill it tops is the obvious and overriding view from the Neolithic henge near its base. As such I find it tempting to say it had some significance for the people who used and made the henge
You can see a photo of Cow Down from the henge at Deverill Road here.
Long Tom is an 8ft standing stone between the Mother’s Jam and the (ex) Manton Round Barrow. As Julian Cope mentions in his book, only round here where there are so many archaeological sites could such a stone go largely unnoticed.
To be honest, its shape is a bit tall and thin compared to the other stones around here. It’s been suggested by Terence Meaden that it replaced an older stone (hm). Celia Haddon (see link) pins its antiquity on the way it stands out above the skyline as you look from the next hill.
Celia says it’s also known as ‘Fred Archer’s Winning Post’ – because it’s so close to the gallops on the Down.
Julian Cope, in his essays in the TMA book, notes how the young Kennet river nestles along the western side of Waden Hill. He suggests that Waden Hill is actually the first hill of the Avebury complex – the long hill whose shape might have inspired the longbarrows. Whether this is true, it certainly seems to have been given an important name by the Saxons – Waden Hill – or maybe Woden’s, Odin’s Hill – he being the god of creation of Norse myth. Could this be recognition of the hill’s previous or continuing importance at the heart of the landscape?
A more tangible theory is that of the ‘Silbury Game’, which is dependent on the angle and height of Waden Hill as one walks along the last 4 or so miles of the Ridgeway towards the Sanctuary. As you may have seen demonstrated in Julian’s TV programme, the effect is, that as you walk, the summit of Silbury Hill appears to ride on the back of Waden Hill – and this would have been all the more obvious when the chalk of the hill was white and fresh.
Waden Hill has/had a number of Bronze Age round barrows on it, and perhaps they would have later added to the effect? remaining stationary as Silbury Hill moved. (The EH record -via the Magic website – says that there were once 9 barrows on Waden Hill, but now only one is visible).
The north end still has round barrows, but a drawing by Stukeley shows a barrow on the south end. There are no traces of this on the ground now, but when it was excavated when a sewer was being put in, the snail shells that were found there showed that the barrow had been constructed in an established grazed downland.
(Archaeology in the Avebury Area. Wessex Arch. Rpt. no 8 1996)
The famous antiquarian John Aubrey (1626-97) began his interest in prehistoric monuments when he was inspired by unexpectedly seeing Avebury while out hunting in 1648.
“I was wonderfully surprised at these vast stones, of which I had never heard before, as also the mighty bank and graff about it.. I left my company a while, entertaining myself with a more delightful indagation.”
(taken from R Whitlock’s 1976 ‘The folklore of Wiltshire’)
Despite the story that it can’t be shifted, actually it has been moved, probably several times. Originally at SP172258 it was part of a chambered barrow, and bones were found under it in the 19th century. In 1880 someone (presumably the vicar) took it upon themselves to move it to the paddock of Lower Swell vicarage (SP173253). And judging by baza’s photos it looks as though it’s been moved yet again?
At the beginning of the 19th century, a Mr Fenton (friend of R Colt-Hoare) excavated (or more likely, demolished) ‘a low mound’ and found the crouched skeletons of a large man and a ‘younger person’. Near the left side of the man was a copper dagger, a slate wrist guard, a bone tool, and a beaker.
Two round discs were found, 1 1/8th inches in diameter, and made of thinly beaten gold. They each had a cross design and two holes in the centre. sound a bit like buttons! I think they (or copies) might be in the Devizes museum – the illustration I saw seemed to ring a bell.*
gleaned from ‘An introduction to the archaeology of Wiltshire’ by M E Cunnington 1933.
*a similar gold disc was found further north at Jug’s Grave.
Aubrey in the 17th century, and Stukeley in the 18th both described the Kennett Avenue as leading from Avebury to Kennet, and then ascending Overton Hill where it ended in two concentric rings of standing stones. Stukeley, with a nice turn of phrase records the destruction of these rings in the winter of 1724 “in order to clear the ground for ploughing and so gain a little dirty profit”.He also said that “[The country people] call it the Sanctuary.”
With the site’s destruction its location was lost until Maud Cunnington managed to locate it from Stukeley’s descriptions. Her excavations found the many holes in which the two circles of stone had stood were found, but also and totally unexpectedly, six concentric circles of holes which had held timbers. The book below claims that one of the deeper postholes contained a piece of lava rock from Niedermendig in the Rhine district, which was often used for ‘mealing stones’ – it was certainly later imported by the romans for millstones. Whether this still holds or whether the find has been reinterpreted I don’t know.
Gleaned from Mrs M E Cunnington’s 1933 ‘Introduction to the archaeology of Wiltshire’.
Aubrey Burl (in ‘Prehistoric Avebury’) states that the Sanctuary was used at least at some point as a mortuary house, where the bodies of particular elite persons were stored until their bones were clean and ready for interring elsewhere.
He also discusses the controversy about whether the sanctuary was roofed or not at any time – whether it was a building or just an arrangement of posts. Certain shells were found in the excavations which belonged to snail species found in marshy areas, perhaps lending weight to the theory that the structure was thatched with reeds at some point.
This flat-topped round barrow caps Airy Hill. It was originally surrounded by a kerb of stones, one of which had six cup marks. However, the stones have either been buried by slipped soil, or have been taken away. There are quite a few barrows that incorporate rock art in this area, along the North and East periphery of the North York Moors.
The rock art suggests that the barrow is from the late Neolithic, or the early Bronze age – and therefore earlier than many similar barrows on the Central moor. I wonder where the majority of ‘ordinary’ on-a-crag rock art is in this area?
The centre of the mound has a dent where it’s been dug into in the past. At the south edge there is a hedge – beyond this the mound has been totally ploughed out. To the west there was another barrow (and there may have been more) but this has been ploughed out completely.
(information gleaned from EH’s scheduled monuments record)
Harry’s Walls is a 16th century (unfinished) artillery castle on the summit of Mount Flagon, overlooking St Mary’s Pool. The castle is to the south east of a standing stone. (Do you like that? I thought I’d put it deliberately that way round. After all, the Stone Was There First). Seven standing stones are known on the Isles of Scilly, all of which are considered by EH to be ‘of national importance.‘
The following information is taken from the MAGIC.gov website:
The prehistoric standing stone is situated near the summit of the hill, just half a metre beyond the castle’s rock cut ditch. It’s a granite slab 2.75m high, set in concreted rubble. It’s 80cm by 30cm at the bottom, tapering to about half that at the top. It’s heavily weathered and each face bears a little pit, the relatively recent result of an attempt to perforate the slab.
The stone is situated on a slight rise, which EH’s schedule calls a ‘sub-circular cairn’ – it’s believed to be artificial. A modern navigation post also stands on the cairn to the NW of the standing stone. The stone’s situation on a small cairn is rare and the antiquity of this association receives unusually early confirmation in its mention by the antiquary Borlase in 1756, as `on a little tumulus near Harry’s Battery’.
I suppose the barrows show use of the area for burials over quite a long period of time:
‘The Knoll’ is described as a bell barrow at magic.gov so will be the burial mound of a wealthy Bronze Age person.
A bronze dagger was found in the excavation of a bell barrow at st91284150, according to magic.gov – but I don’t think I saw this barrow at all (only 3 are on the OS map, but their map shows 4).
ST91124151 is a longbarrow – that’s the middle photo – so that’s neolithic. The other photo is of a bowl barrow, so perhaps that was built in the late neolithic/early bronze age – in the time between the long barrow and the Knoll.
Also, between the bowl barrow and the others is an (almost) ruined church with its graveyard, unusually dedicated to St Leonard – interesting as another layer of ‘burial history’ in this relatively tiny area.
Heytesbury isn’t far away – you might want to pop to that church to visit the mortal remains of William Cunnington. A tablet inside the church has an inscription purportedly written by Richard Colt Hoare.
Why is it you never notice places on your own doorstep? This is quite close to where I grew up, but I’d never heard of it. The Round Hill is a ‘conspicuous local landmark’ amongst the agricultural fields according to information on ‘magic.gov’. It’s said to measure about 21m in diameter, approximately 1.7m, with steep sloping sides and a level summit 10m across. It’s apparently close to its original height.
It sounds quite interesting because it’s never been excavated, and is really well preserved compared to other sites in the area (in the 1970s five nearby barrows were lost when the land was quarried, they contained burials from 1800BCE)*. Personally I didn’t even know there were any barrows visible in this area. The Round Hill is part of a whole complex of sites that flanked the Great Ouse here – the Round Hill is itself quite close to the junction of the Ivel and the Ouse. Although the barrow is on comparatively higher ground, I suppose the floodplain would have been (and is) very fertile land, which would have been attractive to the people who settled here.
In my enthusiasm I really wanted to think those people could have paddled up the river to see their mates at Flag Fen. But of course the river through Peterborough is actually the Nene, and not the Ouse at all. Nice idea though, dimwit.
*details here:
heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MBD617&resourceID=1014
The barrow doesn’t seem to have a ‘view’ (unlike many longbarrows that are apparently positioned prominently – and having been to the nearby West Yatton Downs, it’s not like hills with views are unavailable locally?): it’s on level ground above the valley of By Brook, a tributary of the River Avon. It’s orientated east-west and has been measured at 56m long, 38m wide and 1.5m high.