Rhiannon

‘Adam’ fell on December 2nd, 1911. “The Wiltshire Archaeological Society decided to re-erect the stone, with the object of averting from it, as far as may be, a fate similar to that which befell the third member of the group*, on the principle that a stone standing is more likely to be respected than one fallen.”
Mr. and Mrs. B. H. Cunnington with their two labourers found various sarsen packing stones in the hole, with a herringbone-patterned beaker and the remains of a skeleton close by.

108. The Discovery of a Skeleton and “Drinking Cup” at Avebury
M. E. Cunnington
Man > Vol. 12 (1912), pp. 200-203
Also now here
archive.org/stream/wiltshirearchaeo38wiltuoft#page/n13/mode/2up

Perhaps the stones have been moved at some point:

[I state in a paper published August 1884] that the “Longstone” is an upright stone, having a large flat stone (9feet x 4feet x 2feet) lying on the north-east side of it, which I thought might have been slightly moved from its original position. On revisiting the stones last June I found that the flat stone had been shifted about ten feet and that it now lies to the south-east and not to the north-east of the upright stone. Whether anone has been digging there, and, if so, whether anything has been found, I do not know.. my original sketches clearly show that [I had not made a mistake].

The “Longstone” at Mottistone, Isle of Wight
A. L. Lewis
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 18. (1889), p. 192.

Sir James Young Simpson, as long ago as 1861, said, “Almost all the primaeval stone circles and cromlechs which existed in the middle and southern districts of Scotland have been cast down and removed. . . . In the beginning of the eighteenth century Sir Robert Sibbald states that near the Kipps cromlech was a circle of stones with a large stone or two in the middle, and he adds, ‘many such may be seen all over the country.’ They have all disappeared, and but lately the stones of the Kipps circle have been themselves removed and broken up, to build, apparently, some neighbouring field walls, though there was abundance of stones in the vicinity equally well suited for the purpose.”
Anniversary address to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, January, 1861. (Proceedings, vol.iv.p.48.)

The Stone Circles of Scotland
A. L. Lewis
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 30. (1900), pp. 56-73.

(perhaps this is the source that Crombie (above)’s author was referring to? The last sentence is rather interesting, suggesting a definite anti stance against the stones, rather than just a disinterested one bent on wall building?)

“The name occurs in the form hremmes byrig in a Saxon charter of A.D. 940 (Chron. Monast. Abingdon, vol. 1, p.70), and means ‘raven’s fort’.”

The Scouring of the White Horse
G. W. B. Huntingford
The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 87, No. 1. (Jan. – Jun., 1957), p. 105.

Oh yes we used to make our own entertainment in those days. None of these computer games and ipod things. We knew how to have a good time. If you were wondering what ‘backsword play’ was, mentioned in Hughes’ poem here
themodernantiquarian.com/post/31182
well:

“In backsword play, two men fought with short cudgels, the winner being he who first drew blood from his opponent’s head. In this game the men of the Berkshire-Wiltshire border used to fight the men of Somerset, and it was a complaint of the Berkshiremen that the Somerset heads were hard to draw blood from, since ‘there’s no ‘cumulation of blood belongs to thay cider-drinking chaps, as there does to we as drinks beer. Besides, they drinks vinegar allus for a week afore playin’, which dries up most o’ the blood as they has got; so it takes a ‘mazing sight of cloutin’ to break their heads as should be.”

From Hughes’s ‘The Scouring of the White Horse’ (1859) p132. The ‘pastimes’ were usually held inside Uffington Castle.

First, an “amusing anecdote”:
“Mr Payne alludes to a find of human remains in his Collectanea Cantiana, p139, made presumably when the cave was dug, and of which the skull, by order of the Vicar of Meopham, was buried in that churchyard, causing the Rector of Trosly to complain that he had robbed him of his oldest parishioner!”

And now the hint that one of the stones may have a pollisoir?
“..Another discovery of mine tending that way [towards the interpretation that the site is Neolithic] and of much interest, and unique as far as I know in England, is a highly polished groove in one of the stones.”
Judging by the plan accompanying the article, this stone was/is on the far west of the monument. Another plan shows where flints were set in cement to plug the hole dug by people allegedly searching for the tunnel connecting the site with the church at Trosly (half a mile southwest). The Rector apparently stepped in and put a stop to such behaviour – because he was afraid that the stones might fall in.

Coldrum Monument and Exploration 1910.
F. J. Bennett
The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 43. (Jan. – Jun., 1913), pp. 76-85.

Mr Bennett comes up with a theory that includes the bones found there and the cultivation terraces – that the monument was somewhere to sacrifice a chosen young man to ensure the fertility of the surrounding land.

The stone stood two fields away from the Church, north-west, on the high ground. Take a line from the west end of the Church, through the field-gate across the road, cross the field to the gate of the second field, and then 780 yards further into the next field, until you get on to the hill. The stone, standing as it did, right out in the field, and not against the hedge, was in the way for ploughing and had to be ‘gone round’; so a large hole was dug beside it, and the stone rolled into it, with a good covering of earth put on the top.

The Rev. Dodsworth, when he was vicar of Anwick, thought it a pity to lose the stone, so he set about finding it, and had men probing for it with iron bars, and they came upon many similar large stones below ground, before they found the proper stone. Having located it, and bared it, a traction engine was employed to haul the stone to the present place, near the Churchyard gate.

Don’t you think it’s great how some vicars were keen to preserve such things? Although others would have blown it up, no doubt. I wonder how they recognised The Stone as distinct from all the others they apparently found?

From Lincolnshire Folk-Lore
Ethel H. Rudkin
Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 2. (Jun., 1934), pp. 144-157.

Right out of the Medway valley area we have hints of another megalithic structure, near the village of Cobham, some five miles west of Rochester. Here in an orchard off Battle Street remains today one sarsen, but we know that a group of great stones once existed here because Payne gives extracts from the diary of the farmer who carted them away in 1770-3, while others were removed in 1842 to make a rockery at Cobham Hall. Lucas reported in 1854 on the probability of a megalith once existing here, and states that a native told him that Battle Street led to ‘The Warrior’s Grave’.

...The supposed Cobham megalith was also associated with a battle. Lucas visited this district in 1854, twelve years after the last of the stones had been removed, and eighty years after its destruction, but he reports that it was known locally as ‘The Warrior’s Grave’, and this name was coupled with that of the lane which led towards the monument, which was called Battle Street. This name still endures and is certainly of some antiquity, for we have a record of it as such in 1471. There is no historical record of a battle being fought thereabouts.

George Payne, Collectanea Cantiana 1893, p153.
W C Lucas, Journ. Arch. Asscn., 1854, vol ix, p427.

This comes from p38 and p42 of ‘Notes on the Folklore and Legends Associated with the Kentish Megaliths, by John H. Evans, in Folklore, Vol. 57, No. 1. (Mar., 1946).

Cobham is at TQ6768, and ‘Battle Street’ is marked on the 1:25,000 OS map. Does the stone exist or not? The author’s obviously confused! Perhaps someone local knows.

The sorry tale of the long barrow on Manton Down; from The Times, April 29th, 1953.

An inspector from the Ancient Monuments Department of the Ministry of Works is to visit Manton Down, near Malborough, Wiltshire, to-morrow to examine the site of the 4,000-year-old Long Barrow, which has been destroyed.

Mrs. Todd, wife of Mr. G.E. Todd, a farmer and racehorse trainer who lives at Manton House and owns 1,000 acres of the surrounding countryside, to-day confirmed that the barrow was on her husband’s property – in a cattle enclosure about a quarter of a mile from the house. She informed your Correspondent that the damage had apparently been done last year when the farm was let to Mr. J. E. King, a farmer who now lives at Tuffley Park, Gloucester. The enclosure was then in a bad state, overgrown with thorn bushes and infested with rabbits.

Mr. King told your Correspondent to-day that he had had the bushes removed by a bulldozer last summer. This was to make the rough land ready for ploughing, since he intended to sow it with corn. He said that the Wiltshire agricultural executive committee at Trowbridge had known of his intention; in fact, they had had the enclosure measured for him and were going to give him a grant to plough the land. He said he saw several large stones, but they were too big for his men to move. He said he was not told of any burial mound on the land.

Mrs. Todd also told your Correspondent that neither she nor her husband knew anything about the barrow. When he bought the property in 1947 he was not given or told of any documents relating to the barrow.

A spokesman in the Ancient Monuments Department of the Ministry of Works, which today received a report from Mr. N. Thomas, curator of Devizes Museum, said that “a most serious view” was taken of the destruction. He said there was no reason for ignorance on the part of a property owner that there was a scheduled monument on his land. Various steps were taken to let an owner know that a monument had been scheduled. He was given notice of the fact and received a map showing where the monument was.

Manton Long Barrow was scheduled as an ancient monument in 1922.

The next day an article in the paper included this:“Mr G.E.Todd, of Manton House.. said later that the inspector had advised him to replace the earth round a group of large sarsen stones which surround a solitary elder bush at one end of the barrow..”

It makes you wonder if any stones remain to be seen at the site. I have taken the grid reference (SU14787135) and alternative name from ‘Long Barrows of the Cotswolds and Surrounding Areas’ by Timothy Darvill (2004).
Having said that, I spotted this thread
themodernantiquarian.com/forum/?thread=8482
which mentions that the stones were moved as recently as 1996? and could even be in Fyfield now (quite a way from their source).

Well, this has to be one of the stranger things I’ve read about an ancient site.

A dentist living at Dorchester (Dorset) of the name of Maclean, anxious to prosecute some scientific inquiries bearing upon his profession as a dentist, obtained permission to open a barrow in the neighbourhood of that ancient town [at or near to] Maiden Castle; in which he found, at the depth of thirty feet below the surface, not only the teeth of ancient Britons, the chief object of his search, but he also discovered, lying in what seemed to be the cavity of the abdomen of a skeleton, a quantity of a substance, which turned out upon investigation to be the seeds of raspberries. Some of these seeds were planted in a pot, and placed under the care of Mr. Hartwig, then employed in the gardens at Chiswick. Four of these seeds germinated, and plants were preserved and grown therefrom, and which we are told are still living in those gardens.

This correspondence goes on for several pages, with testaments to the complete reliability of the persons mentioned. You’ve still got to wonder, really. Yet you hear about other 1000+ year old seeds germinating..

From Notes and Queries, December 4th 1852.

THE GREAT STONE OF THOR.— The following statement will not be without interest to your archaeological readers. In November, 1877, I called attention in the columns of N & Q.s to this venerable relic of prehistoric antiquity, probably of Danish origin, which exists at Thursaston (Thor-stane-ton), Cheshire, about eight miles from Birkenhead, and which, from its secluded position, has almost entirely escaped notice. I then stated my apprehensions that the advance of modern improvements would be likely to lay it out for building villas, for which the site is admirably adapted.

A commission of inquiry was sent down, which communicated with the Corporation of Birkenhead, being the nearest market town. It happened, fortunately, that the article in” N. & Q.” had been seen and noticed by several members of this Corporation, who drew the attention of the commissioner to the desirability of preserving the monument. The result has been that not only will the monument be preserved, but sixty acres of. the surrounding land are to be set apart for a public park. The gigantic rock altar, with its beautiful natural amphitheatre, will thus be kept intact for ages yet to come. This circumstance, I think, affords encouragement to those who interest themselves in the preservation of our remnants of antiquity. J. A. PICTON.
Sandyknowe, Wavertree.

Notes and Queries, Jan 8th, 1881.

Well. This is the ‘infamous’ Boles Barrow. Why such a reputation? Because a bluestone, of the same ilk as those at Stonehenge, was allegedly found here. The thing is, the Boles Barrow is supposed to be much older than the periods when the blue stones were being chipped at and shuffled about at Stonehenge. One interpretation of this discrepancy is that the blue stones were on Salisbury plain all along, having been brought by glaciers.
Aubrey Burl was all for this idea in this 1999 article: britarch.ac.uk/BA/ba45/ba45int.html
But lots of people think the glacier idea is sheer poppycock. Where are all the other glacial erratics on the plain? And right, ice sheets only dropped a dozen or so bluestones? Still, it’s pretty bonkers that prehistoric people might have transported stones all the way from West Wales.

The stone in question was found by William Cunnington when he excavated the barrow in 1801. He wrote about a “Blue hard stone ye same as the upright Stones in ye inner circle at Stonehenge”. The stone apparently eventually turned up in the Salisbury museum. But is it really the stone from the Boles barrow? And if so is it actually the same type of stone as the Stonehenge bluestones? If it is, could it have been brought earlier? With all the others, maybe? And the rest were later moved to Stonehenge? After all a small lump has recently been found at Woodhenge.
stonepages.com/news/#2037
Oh it’s all very confusing.

Just to be helpful, the information on the EH scheduled monument record via Magic doesn’t mention the stone at all.

The barrow’s also been called Heytesbury I, and is now on the SMR and OS map as ‘Bowl’s Barrow’. I assume it’s the same place though! If you look at it on Google Earth you’ll see the poor thing looking like a roundabout surrounded by tyre/tank? tracks. In fact, I spotted this quote:

“... the scale and nature of military interference is startling. [C.C.] most vividly remembers his first visit to Bowl’s Barrow, one of the most important spot sites in the SPTA, where he found recent tracked-vehicle marks scouring deeply through its ditch and the “no-driving” sign squashed into the mud of the new track.”

(from Managing for Effective Archaeological Conservation: The Example of Salisbury Plain Military Training Area. By Roy Canham and Christopher Chippindale, in Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Spring, 1988), pp. 53-65.)

Redhill round barrow cemetery is one of only three cemeteries known in the Avon area. There were at least six barrows here (though the mounds you can see will be less than 1m high). It’s not far from two long barrows (the Water Stone and another at Redhill.)

Another visitor unimpressed with the refurbishment writes to Notes and Queries, June 11 1870.

During a recent visit to the south of Dorsetshire, I made arrangements for a trip to the Hellstone[...] Gathering my ideas of its appearance principally from the little vignette on Mr. C. Warne’s Map of Ancient Dorsetshire, I naturally expected to see a somewhat dilapidated and venerable structure. Imagine my surprise then, on attaining the top of the hill, to find quite a different object from that engraved on the map. Instead of the slanting capstone, with the supporters lying here and there, all is now changed: its present appearance reminding me very strongly of a sepulchral chamber figured on p. 79 of Worsaae’s Primeval Antiquities of Denmark.

The huge capstone is now placed over nine supporting stones, arranged on an oval plan, so as to leave an entrance on the south-east. Who placed all these supporters upright, I could not ascertain. In my humble opinion this kind of restoration should never be encouraged, if we wish our antiquities to be respected: for who will look on an ancient structure, which has been patched up in the nineteenth century, with the same degree of veneration as if it had remained in the hoary condition handed down to us through successive ages ?

The Hellstone, I imagine, has not been restored for any long period. I infer this from- information received from a little shepherd boy, who, although he told me he had been but a short time in the neighbourhood, said he remembered when the stones were askew and fallen, pointing out to me some of their positions. I could only positively identify one of the supporters with those in the view given by Mr. Warne on his map. This stone, the supporter on the south-west, has not been shifted from its former position. Some of the other stones may he guessed at, but they have all been moved more or less.[..]

E. H. W. Dunkin.

This correspondent in Notes and Queries is using the ‘Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland, in a Series of Letters to John Watkinson, M.D., 8vo., Dublin, 1778.’ as his source.

About ten miles north of Glasgow, near the village of Strathblane, were to be seen till lately (as I am informed, some sordid Goth having broken them up to build walls) three immense blocks of freestone in a remote field, reputed to be Druidical, which went under the name of the ” Auld Wives’ Lifts.”

Two of the stones lay together, and the third transversal on the top, with an aperture to creep through, by the doing or not doing of which strange rewards and penalties were the consequence. There is no similar kind of rock near the place. The surrounding ground is generally cold and infertile, and could not be said to be favourable for the growth of oaks or other trees ; but there are evidences from the extensive peat mosses and beams of black oak dug up, that in ancient times, in the neighbourhood of these stones, there had existed large forests of oak, supposed by some to bave been destroyed by the Romans who had possession of the spot, or by the Caledonians in their struggles with that power. G. N.

N&Q April 9th 1859. ‘Some sordid Goth’ – now that’s a great turn of phrase.

This bivallate Iron Age hillfort has a ruined church inside, built in the late 1200s (though perhaps there was one there even earlier). There was said to have been a 2000 year old yew tree, but this was burnt down in the 1930s. Isn’t that the kind of age people always say about yew trees? but it would be interesting if true. The church has been vandalised in the past but some people set up a group to protect the building and the fort, when they were threatened with housing development in the mid 1990s. Their website is here:
stmaryscaerau.org/

It’s a shame that Mr HH finds there’s nothing to see here – the map makes it look as though barrows are positively jostling for space in this field. Perhaps a search for the stone mentioned in the following letter will be more fruitful? You never know.

..It appears that in the course of ploughing a field belonging to a small estate called ” Cold Wells,” which lies about 500 yards east of the ” Burrows” field [where the other barrows are] the share struck against a hard substance about a foot or two below the surface.

Steps were immediately taken to remove the obstruction, by clearing away the earth, when it was found to consist of a stone at least 2 feet long, and nearly as wide, with a thickness of 10 or 12 inches. It rested on four other stones, each about an inch and a half thick, the whole forming a small kist about a foot square.

In this chamber was an urn of brown clay, standing with its mouth upwards. It was perfect when first disclosed, but fell to pieces immediately on being touched, though the finder, having been present at the barrow openingsin the locality in 1845, was cognizant of its interest and value, and endeavoured to use the utmost care in attempting the removal of such a fragile object. The fragments, however, were not preserved, nor were further excavations made, but the cavity was immediately filled up, and the coverstone placed in an adjoining hedge.

It may be added that the kist was perfectly dry, and had it been left undisturbed, the urn might have remained perfect for another thousand years or more.

From Notes and Queries January 30th, 1875.

A five foot high stone stands on a slight elevation near the river, north of Tinnis Castle. RCAHMS says it has a wedge-shaped top.

There’s also thought to be a ring ditch and souterrain at NT 1396 3544, 30m from the stone.

The fort was described by Collinson in his ‘History of Somerset’ in 1791. It was known as Caesar’s Camp.

Barry Cunliffe, in ‘Danebury’ (1986), explains how excavations at the site really kicked off interest in hill forts. In 1851 a group of local enthusiasts led by the Reverend Francis Warre began..

..what can fairly be regarded as the first serious exploration of a British hill fort, excavating an impressive total of 93 pits and finding for their pains a miscellaneous collection of domestic debris.

The details of this work, together with the results of further excavations on the defences, were brought together by C W Dymond and published in 1886 in a substantial volume devoted solely to Worlbury [sic].

The early work at Worlbury became widely known among antiquarians and inspired others to explore their local forts.

Well it’s not every child that goes to school inside an Iron Age hillfort (at least not in the present century) – unless you’re at Fort Hill Community School. The fort’s even on their badge along with a nice celticy white horse.

If you’re ever speeding along the Andover Bypass you might spare a thought for poor Balksbury. Most of it has been destroyed by the road and a big housing development (no doubt full of corny road names relating to the fort). Only the very SW end survives (if you can call it that, squeezed as it is, and damaged by ploughing). It was a large hillfort first occupied in the Late Bronze Age, and probably had rather a nice view over the confluence of two rivers below, to the south east. This was also the direction of the single gated entrance. It was used until and during the Roman period. It’s on the scheduled ancient monuments list (which is where this information derives, from Magic) – but this status clearly hasn’t afforded it much protection.

The Youth of Today. They’re always to blame. If only there’d been a notice to request they didn’t climb on the stone.

On visiting Llandudno about a year ago, after ten years’ absence, I was disgusted to find that the rocking-stone, which I often moved with one finger*, had been thrown off its balance, of course by some of the fast young “gents,” many of whom I saw exhibiting their graces on the Esplanade. It is no credit to the “Llandudno Improvement Company ” that such a wanton piece of mischief should have occurred, or, having occurred, that means were not taken to replace the stone, as in the case of the famous Cornish Logan.
CYWBH.

Taken from a letter to Notes and Queries, December 18, 1869.

*It was all right for him to touch it of course, because he was doing it in a careful and appreciative way. Ah how the discussion continues 130 years+ down the line...

..I will first remark that, in my opinion, the cause of the fall is not to be ascribed ” to foul play.” Living in the next parish, I often visit the cromlech. I was at it for a considerable time three days before its fall, and then there were no signs of the earth being disturbed about the upright stones; and when I visited it again, within a few days, no change appeared to have taken place, save that which was evidently caused by the fall.

The quoit, prior to the accident, rested on the tops of two stones, and against the sloping side of the upper part of the third. In Lysons’s Devonshire, p. cccviii., there is a woodcut showing the quoit resting on the two stones; the manner in which it rested against the third is not there seen. The cause of the fall I consider to have been this: the heavy quoit has acted as a wedge on the stone against which it rested (and which still remains), and has pushed it a few inches backwards; the ground, which is a light granite gravel, being saturated by the unusually long rains of this spring, and thus rendered softer than usual; the giving way of this stone would cause the quoit to move forwards, and it would draw with it the two stones on which it rested. The action on these two stones was clearly seen at the time of the accident.

One stone (that on the left hand in the woodcut) was only about eighteen inches in the ground, and this has been drawn over; the other (that to the right) was of weak coarse granite; this was moved a little, and then it broke off near the surface of the ground.

As the fall of this — I believe the only perfect cromlech in Devonshire — has caused much regret, I have occupied a considerable space in stating what I consider to have been the cause; and the above is the result of a very careful examination made shortly after the accident. Probably if the green sward had been preserved for a few yards round the cromlech the fall would not have taken place ; but the field has been in tillage, and the support has been diminished by the gradual lowering of the surface thereby, and the action of Dartmoor storms on the broken up soil, in which the upright stones had but a slight hold. On the day of the fall, the wind was unusually violent.

An able stone-mason in this town was instructed by a gentleman residing in the parish of Drewsteignton shortly after the fall to make the needful examinations preparatory to restoring the cromlech, and I believe that it is intended to proceed with the same as soon as the corn crop, which now surrounds it, is removed. I had taken several outline drawings of the cromlech before it fell, so fortunately exact working drawings exist by which it can be replaced.

G. WAREING ORMEROD.
Chagford, near Exeter.

From Notes and Queries, 26th July, 1862.

A later letter in November lets us know that the work’s been done,
“by Messrs. W. Stone & Ball, builders at Chagford, at the expense of the Rev. W. Ponsford, the Rector of Drewsteignton.”

Coflein describes this barrow as 19m in diameter and 1.5m high, set upon a natural knoll. Its name means ‘shivering’ or ‘trembling’ grave. Now that’s got to have a good story attached to it, surely.* [*Except this is completely wrong – see Maldwyn’s comment below. Apologies.]

This small Bronze Age cairn sits inside the hillfort on a knoll at the summit of Craig Rhiwarth. It’s made of scree stones and is about 1.5m across and 0.4m high, according to Coflein.

Obviously people were using the hilltop before the Iron Age fort was built: this is a small Bronze age cairn on the westernmost cliff edge, on the slope outside the hillfort. According to Coflein it’s only 2m across and 0.4m high, and is made of small angular stones overlying a quarried out ‘scoop’.

According to Cofleing, this hill-top enclosure has several entrances in its tumbled stone walls, “running through precipitous crags”, and inside are about 170 circular structures which one imagines were round houses (and some rectangular ones which were last used as a hafod (summer shelter) in the 19th century).

The information on Magic says Longbury is unusual for its low lying and inconspicuous position. It has a broad view to the east though – and it’s orientated east-west. It’s about 35m long and between 1.5 and 2m high. There were excavations in 1802, 1855 and 1951, and agriculture has also taken its toll – it’s a bit battered.

“The results of part excavation suggests that the barrow mound was constructed of soil covered by limestone slabs and capped with soil. The 1802 excavations revealed several skeletons on the original ground surface. In 1855 further skeletons were found just below the turf together with some unidentified pottery. In 1954 a skeleton, thought to be a crouched burial, was found just below the surface in the eroded section of the 1951 excavation.”

There is a barrow or tumulus called Bunker’s Hill, otherwise Gib Hill, near Youlgreave, in North Derbyshire. It is mentioned in Murray’s Handbook, but the origin of the name is not given.

I notice the name in old English characters on the one-inch Ordnance map, which I suppose simply indicates that the place is marked by ancient remains. The contents of the barrow are described in Ten Years’ Diggings, by Thos. Bateman.
0. F. H.

From Notes and Queries s6-IV (91): 256. (1881). Online at
nq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/s6-IV/91/256-b.pdf

Tan Hill fair had a bit of a reputation. An 80 year old shepherd, Daniel Swatton, speaking in the 1930s, said “Th’ used to reckon as anybody could get a pint o’ beer an’ a smack on th’ yead ver dreepence up at Tan Hill.”

(from ‘Shepherd Lore – the last years of traditional shepherding in Wiltshire’ by Peter Gurney (C S Smith), published 1985 but written 1935)

I’ve read that the fair was held on August 6th which was the new ‘old style’ calendar version of July 26th, the feast of St Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary.
books.google.co.uk/books?id=i-MMAAAAYAAJ&dq=hill%20fayre&pg=PA35

Alternative information about the stone(s), mentioned by M Cunnington in her 1949 ‘Intro to the archaeology of Wiltshire’. She says the following is “all that is known of the circle” and is Hoare quoting William Cunnington (in his An. Wilts I).

In a field near Place Farm, in the parish of Tisbury, was a circular work with a vallum set round with stones, and a large stone placed erect in the centre. On removing the stone (which was twelve feet high and four feet wide) by Lord Arundel’s orders, to the old Castle of Wardour, a skeleton was found, at the depth of 18” under the surface, deposited close to the central stone.

Twelve foot?!

On Putney Heath or Wimbledon Common there are said to have been twenty-three barrows, some of which were opened in 1786 and pottery found. They seem to have been both long and round. Some thirty years earlier others had been opened, perhaps by Stukeley. Barrows also existed near the camp and traces of hut-circles are said to have been visible about 1856. The Ridgeway is probably part of the primitive road from the ford at Kingston along the slopes on the southern side of the Thames Valley. The name and situation, like the road similarly named in Berkshire, indicate a pre-Roman track.

At the south-west corner of the Common there is a nearly circular entrenchment of about 7 acres, which Camden called ‘Bensbury,’ and Salmon in 1740 says was called the Rounds, and which within the last hundred years has been called Caesar’s Camp. It is defended by a single bank and ditch, with a second low bank outside the ditch. It has been much damaged by a late owner.

A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 4 (1912), pp. 120-25. online at British History Online
british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=43040.

Somehow I feel there’s not going to be much you can see here. But it’s a long barrow between the relatively intact Lugbury and Lanhill long barrows, so I felt it was worth mentioning. It is a scheduled monument (since 1999) and is described on Magic as being a rounded long mound up to 1.5m high, and about 57m long (it’s been spread out by ploughing). “The barrow from which Green Barrow Farm takes its name is recorded in Scrope’s
History of Castle Combe as a long oblong mound, levelled by its owner in 1852.”

Although this was later to become a Norman motte and bailey castle, it is thought (according to the smr record on Magic) that the site was originally that of an Iron Age promontory fort, suggested by the fact that immediately below it on the west side is the By Brook, a tributary of the Avon. There’s also an extra bank on the NE corner, which also points to a prehistoric origin.

There are two quartz boulders here known as the ‘Rocking Stones’. One is 3x1.8x0.7m and the other 2.5x1.3x0.7m. They are thought to be the remains of a recumbent stone circle. Aubrey Burl suggests that the stones were taken from outcrops half a mile to the SW.

It is possible that there was another circle north of New Deer at NJ 881483, where the Hill of Culsh monument now stands.

(info from the RCAHMS website).

The best example I know of.. [an] excellent sort of vitality in roads is the Ridgeway of the North Berkshire Downs. Join it at Streatley, the point where it crosses the Thames; at once it strikes you out and away from the habitable world in a splendid, purposeful manner, running along the highest ridge of the Downs a broad green ribbon of turf, with but a shade of difference from the neighbouring grass, yet distinct for all that.

No villages nor homesteads tempt it aside or modify its course for a yard; should you lose the track where it is blent with the bordering turf or merged in and obliterated by criss-cross paths, you have only to walk straight on, taking heed of no alternative to right or left; and in a minute ‘tis with you again -- arisen out of the earth as it were. Or, if still not quite assured, lift you your eyes, and there it runs over the brow of the fronting hill. Where a railway crosses it, it disappears indeed -- hiding Alpheus-like, from the ignominy of rubble and brick-work; but a little way on it takes up the running again with the same quiet persistence.

Out on that almost trackless expanse of billowy Downs such a track is in some sort humanly companionable: it really seems to lead you by the hand.

From ‘Pagan Papers’ by Kenneth Grahame (1893). You can read the rest at Bill McClain’s home page here:
home.salamander.com/~wmcclain/grahame-pagan-papers.html

This hillfort perches on the convenient natural hill of Coxall Knoll, which lies on the county boundary and between the River Teme and the River Redlake. The hillsides are naturally steep, but were artificially steepened: there’s an 8-12m drop from the top of some of the banks to the bottom of the ditches. There’s a complex of enclosures within enclosures – perhaps some of the banks were left unfinished.

In the northerly section there is a recumbent stone, 1.5m x 1.5m x 0.5m. It’s known as the Frog Stone because of its alleged resemblance to a crouching frog. The Herefordshire SMR suggests the stone was once upright, and points to the uneven wear on its surfaces as evidence (the record at Magic says this is glacial erosion on its upper surface). They add that the stone faces north east over the Clun valley, and so may have been deliberately positioned by the hillfort builders, or perhaps by earlier inhabitants of the area.

Castle an Dinas was mentioned briefly by Richard Carew in his 1600s ‘Survey of Cornwall’:

Neere to Belowdy, commonly, & not vnproperly, termed Beelowzy, the top of a hill is enuironed with deep treble trenches, which leaue a large playne space in the midst: they call it Castellan Danis... and it seemeth (in times past) to haue bin a matter of moment, the rather, for that a great cawsey (now couered with grasse) doth lead vnto it.

Online courtesy of Project Gutenberg at
gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/srvcr10.txt

The scheduled monument record describes King’s Castle as a ‘defended enclosure’ – a much rarer creature than the similar age Hill Forts. It’s much smaller and may have only been occupied by a single family. (that’d be the King’s then). Today the area is wooded and is managed as a nature reserve by the Somerset Wildlife Trust. A stone that stood at its foot is now at Wells Museum.

Morgan’s Hill has a lot of interesting features – a cross dyke from the middle Bronze Age, numerous round barrows (some apparently in a group), and various unprehistoric things like Wansdyke and a Roman road. It’s also got great views, and lots of chalk downland plants and animals. It’s relatively easy to pinpoint from afar, as it’s got a large wireless mast and a distinctive clump of trees.

This fine tumulus is a conspicuous object on Shurdington Hill, three miles south of Cheltenham, and three quarters of a mile north-east of the Crickley Hill Camp. The position affords extensive views over the vale of Gloucester... Many years ago the tenant of the land began to move away part of the earth at the southern extremity, and in doing so uncovered a cromlech, in which was found a skeleton and several articles of which no satisfactory account can now be obtained. The ground in which the tumulus stands is still called the “Barrow Piece.”

From Bill Thayer’s webpage of Witts’s 1880s ‘Archaeological Handbook of the County of Gloucester’.

The smr record on Magic adds that there is a flat stone at the eastern end, nearly 2m long, and that this is thought to be the capstone of the chamber opened in the 18th century. Rudder, writing in 1779, recorded that the barrow had been opened some years before. He claimed that a skeleton had been found in the burial chamber, with ‘a helmet, which was so corroded by rust that it fell to pieces on the slightest touch.’ Since the Neolithic people did not have metal helmets, was this body a later addition, or a misinterpretation of the find?

Wins Barrow is on the crest of Bourton Hill. It’s right on the parish boundary – or rather, perhaps, the parish boundary is right on it. Perhaps that’s why it’s also cut right through by a road, which also follows the boundary. Er, so there isn’t much to see here.

The barrow is mentioned in a Saxon charter from 779AD, where it is called ‘Winesbeorg’.

The long barrow on Adlestrop Hill was excavated in the 1930s. As the article in the accompanying link nicely says, it was discovered by Major R C Freer and his sons, who were out blackberry picking in September – they noticed the stones of the chamber poking through the mound of turf.

The barrow’s stones can still be seen at the east end of the mound (it’s only .8m high here, but 1.5m at the other end).

A single paved burial chamber was found, which contained the remains of about 8 people. A cairn of stones had been piled over and then the whole covered with earth.

The local natural limestone would have been easily gathered – they’re known as ‘Rugg Stones’ and renowned as a pain to ploughmen. There are mounds of field clearance in the same field as the barrow. The article mentions that the stones in the rockery at Adlestrop Park probably came from this hill. So this means the hill is the source of the Goose Stones too?

(info from the smr record on Magic and the article in the link).

This round barrow perches on the top of Mynydd Dinas. The barrow’s name means ‘look out mound’. Mynydd Dinas implies a fortification or settlement of some sort, but there doesn’t seem to be any trace. You can see an aerial photo of the mountain at ggat.org.uk/historic%20landscapes/Rhondda/English/Rhondda_028.htm
which is part of the Glamorgan and Gwent Archaeological Trust website.

At the foot of the hill the map shows ‘Mother Anthony’s Well’ (ST 999642). Apparently it is probable that a major Roman shrine was associated with this spring*... and could this have been a continuation of earlier beliefs?

*According to the Avebury Archaeological Research Agenda wiltshire.gov.uk/archaeological-research-agenda-avebury.pdf

This barrow is long lost. But I hope the TMA Eds will permit its inclusion as it held the most amazing (and famous) collection of grave goods, and (some of) these, at least, have survived; you can see them in Devizes museum. Also, the truly obsessed will get a kick out of visiting the spot, without the need for the barrow to even be present...

Eagles and Field* say that early OS maps place the barrow at ST94444010, but the exact site isn’t definitely known. Aerial photos show at least seven round mounds in the vicinity, so perhaps it’ll never be certain.

Curiously, the mound was already built and occupied by a cremation when the two new cremations and their accompanying wealth were added – it’s a shame we can only speculate about the story behind this.

*B Eagles and D Field – William Cunnington and the long barrows of the River Wylye. In ‘Monuments and Material Culture’ ed. R Cleal and J Pollard, 2004.

It seems that Richard Colt Hoare visited the site:

The following account of its discovery was communicated, in 1821, to the Cambro-Briton (and printed in that publication, II. p. 71), by Sir R. C. Hoare, on the authority of Richard Fenton, Esq., of Fishguard.

“An Account of the Discovery, in 1813, of an Urn, in which, there is every reason to suppose, the ashes of Bronwen (White Bosom), the daughter of Llyr, and aunt to the great Caractacus, were deposited.

A farmer, living on the banks of the Alaw, a river in the Isle of Anglesea, having occasion for stones, to make some addition to his farm-buildings, and having observed a stone or two peeping through the turf of a circular elevation on a flat not far from the river, was induced to examine it, where, after paring off the turf, he came to a considerable heap of stones, or carnedd, covered with earth, which he removed with some degree of caution, and got to a cist formed of coarse flags canted and covered over. On removing the lid, he found it contained an urn placed with its mouth downwards, full of ashes and half-calcined fragments of bone. The report of this discovery soon went abroad, and came to the ears of the parson of the parish, and another neighbouring clergyman, both fond of, and conversant in, Welsh antiquities, who were immediately reminded of a passage in one of the early Welsh romances, called the Mabinogion (or juvenile tales), the same that is quoted in Dr. Davies’s Latin and Welsh Dictionary, as well as in Richards’s, under the word Petrual (square).

‘Bedd petrual a wnaed i Fronwen ferch Lyr ar lan Alaw, ac yno y claddwyd hi.‘

A square grave was made for Bronwen, the daughter of Llyr, on the banks of the Alaw, and there she was buried.

Happening to be in Anglesea soon after this discovery, I could not resist the temptation of paying a visit to so memorable a spot, though separated from it by a distance of eighteen miles. I found it, in all local respects, exactly as described to me by the clergyman above mentioned, and as characterised by the cited passage from the romance. The tumulus, raised over the venerable deposit, was of considerable circuit, elegantly rounded, but low, about a dozen paces from the river Alaw. The Urn was preserved entire, with an exception of a small bit out of its lip, was ill-baked, very rude and simple, having no other ornament than little pricked dots, in height from about a foot to fourteen inches, and nearly of the following shape [you may see the picture on the link]. When I saw the urn, the ashes and half-calcined bones were in it.

From Lady Guest’s Mabinogion notes for Branwen Daughter of Llyr, at the Sacred Texts Archive:
sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/mab/mab23.htm

Once a year Yarnbury becomes reanimate, on the day of the Horse and Sheep Fair, October 4th, held in this lonely trysting place by immemorial tradtion. Here.. the flocks..stand close packed in pens; bunches of young ponies are tied up in one corner.. and near by are the sober cart-horses, their plaited manes and tails aprick with ornaments of straw. The vendor of sheep bells spreads his metal wares upon the ground.. the purchase of sheep bells is a serious matter, good ones costing as much as five shillings..In the good old days, up to within the memory of people still living, the fair was followed by horse races next day, and sports of all kinds. But now the pleasure part of the meeting has been abandoned; the folk disperse quietly soon after noon, when business is done, leaving Yarnbury to the silent occupation of its prehistoric ghosts for another year.

From Ella Noyes’s ‘Salisbury Plain’ (1913) (taken from a quote in Katy Jordan’s 2000 ‘Haunted Wiltshire’).

Interestingly(?) the parish boundary crosses the centre of the fort (though I’m afraid bridleways only skirt the edges).

On the opposite side of the ravine, just above the point where the Bridgwater road is carried along the face of the hill, are traces of another and smaller Camp, called Dinghurst Damp. This has almost been destroyed by quarrying the stone, but sufficient of the rampart remains to show it was another strong position coeval with Dolebury, guarding the pass, or else constructed in after times as an additional security.

from the Proceedings of the Bath Field Club, v5 (1885).

An excursion to Uleybury from the early 1870s.

The group set off from Cam via a short cut “which was taken at the advice of one of the members always noted for his short cuts – which are generally found to have their existence in his internal consciousness and by no means to have any objectivity in themselves.” When the view opened up “the object of the excursion [was revealed] on the top of another hill in the distance, with a valley between.” (I think we’ve all been on a walk with him).

The large stone which covered and protected the entrance to the chambers having fallen down, considerable difficulty was found in gaining admittance at all, as the space at first appeared only sufficiently large for a rabbit run. By dint of wriggling in a most undignified manner, four of the thinnest, and of course, the most juvenile of the members feet foremost, and in a prone attitude were enabled to penetrate the innermost recesses...

The state of the [tumulus] was a subject of great regret to the Club, for unless something be done, and that speedily, to stay the mischief going on, another of the few remaining works of the early people of this island will be destroyed.

From the Proc. of the Bath Field Club v2 p241 (1870-2).