This is a rather neat drawing of the urns found during excavation of the barrow in 1842. According to the information on ‘Magic’, each urn was upended over a cremation burial. The mound is about 1.3m high and would have had a view of the river to the NW.
This barrow is right next to a track in the northern half of the wood. There’s also a round barrow in the southern part of the wood at TR133536.
[sadly this link is broken and I can’t find the urn picture any more]
“Sept 1806. A large oblong Barrow was open’d in the Parish of Duntesbourne Abbots Gloucestershire; in which was found a Kistvaen containing about eight or nine Bodies of different Ages...”
Pencil / pen and ink drawings from 1806 of ‘before and after’ the excavations.
From the Courier
thecourier.co.uk/output/2006/07/29/newsstory8595566t0.asp
Archaeologists have been working this week on a 30ft long Bronze age log boat, which is in the tidal mudflats of the Tay near Abernethy. A radiocarbon test has dated it to 1000BC, so it is among the oldest ever found in Scotland. It was probably used for fishing and wildfowling.
It will be lifted by a floating cradle and transported to the National Museum of Scotland, where it will be conserved over three years before display.
(edit) there’s a picture of the boat, in the mud, here:
heritage.scotsman.com/places.cfm?id=1111362006
There seem to be a lot of spectres floating about the vicinity of Grace Dieu Priory.
The link at the bottom, an article by Stephen Neale Badcock, gives you the full lowdown. He also mentions that Paul Devereux did a bit of research at the location. This is an excerpt from his ‘Earth Lights’ book (1982).
“In the north-west of Leicestershire are the ruins of Grace Dieu Priory and in the field alongside stands the remains of a monolith. In our research on the county Andrew York and I learned of a legend which stated that a ‘White Lady’ ghost could be seen in this field on rare occasions. It was supposed to be the ghost of one of the nuns belonging to the former priory. To our surprise we discovered that this was not merely a legend, but it was also claimed that people nowadays had allegedly seen the spectre, even that a country bus which which runs along a road down one side of the haunted field had, at night, stopped for a white figure only to find it was the ghost. It was our good fortune to learn of an eyewitness account of the phenomenon. According to this witness, on the bus one evening when one of these incidents occurred, the ‘White Lady’ was simply a softly glowing, misty column of light, not a figure at all, that floated off across the field. In daylight, this type of event, or something very similar, seems to appear more as a dark column of gaseous or cloudy substance – a veritable vapour.
To add to the interest, it seems that the site is pretty much on a large geological faultline – a feature thought to be often present where spooky lights (earthlights) are seen.
The White Lady of Gracedieu. Compiled by Stephen Neale Badcock.
geocities.com/oliveshark53/whitelady.htm
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
Curiously, to support my speculation about a golden torc [see Tan Hill – Ed.], I found the following in M E Cunnington’s ‘Introduction to the Archaeology of Wiltshire’ (1949).
A piece of gold torque, or collar, weighing about 2 1/2 oz., was found by a man digging hard chalk on Allington Down, near Tan Hill, in 1844.* When the early Iron Age site at All Cannings Cross was being excavated in 1920-22 an old man who had known the finder of the torque gave the following account of its discovery. At first the finder thought it was brass, and hung it on a hurdle near where he was digging, and there it stayed for about a week; he must have had his doubts about it, for he then took it away and showed it to his master, who offered him half a crown for it; this he refused, because he thought, if the master was willing to give him half-a-crown, it’s likely as not to be worth more; so he took it to a bank in Devizes, where they soon found it to be solid gold, and thus led it to being claimed by the lord of the manor, the then Lord Ilchester, in whose family it is still.
I bet he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. The common law of treasure trove at the time was “when any gold or silver, in coin, plate or bullion hath been of ancient time hidden, wheresoever it be found, whereof no person can prove any property, it doth belong to the King, or to some Lord or other by the King’s grant, or prescription”. But I don’t suppose a poor digger had much chance of arguing it wasn’t ‘hidden’.
Anyway, so perhaps there was local knowledge that a gold torc had been found sometime in the past, and this had got converted/incorporated into the story below? Who knows the Complicated Workings of Folklore. Or it could really have been a ghost of course.
*(also see Wilts Arch Mag 36 p435)
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?!
I read in Maud Cunnington’s ‘Introduction to the Archaeology of Wiltshire’ (1949) that “Falkener’s Circle [sic] formerly stood in a field called Waylen’s Penning.”
I know. It could have just been a man called Waylen who owned the field. But what if it’s to do with Waylen = the mythological smith Wayland? and the original circle was where he penned his animals? Information to confirm / deny this is welcome...
What Wayland (Volund) got up to in his smithy isn’t actually very nice, if you read the ‘Völundarkviða’ Norse poem. It’s a bit gruesome. I’ll leave it up to you whether you tell the kids as they’re poking about amongst the stones. Actually they’ll probably relish it. A little excerpt:
He struck off the heads of those stalwart boys,
Under soot-blackened bellows their bodies hid,
From both their skulls he scraped the hair
And set them in silver as a sight for Nidud,
Of their eyes he fashioned excellent gems
For his dear neighbor, Nidud’s wife,
And out of the teeth which were in their mouths
He forged a brooch to bring Bodvild joy.
You can read the translation by W. H. Auden and P. B. Taylor at ‘Woden’s Harrow – Norse Myth Source Texts’ here
angelfire.com/on/Wodensharrow/volund.html
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.
Coflein says that Bedd Gwyl Illtyd was originally described as a pair of stones with a mound between, but now it’s thought to be the remains of a ring cairn 13m in diameter.
On the motif of petrifaction as punishment for wrongdoing, a life of St Cadog (c. AD 1100) relates that he turned two wolves into stones for biting sheep; and a life of St Illtud (c.AD 1140) narrates how he turned two robbers into stone for stealing his herd of swine. ‘Till now.. are seen the immovable stones called by the name ‘Two Robbers’*. These stones cannot certainly now be identified, but two rather widely separated standing stones were located a few years ago on Mynydd Illtud by D J James.
*A W Wade-Evans: Vita Sanctorum Britanniae et Genealogiae (1944
From ‘Notes on the Folklore of Prehistoric Sites,’ by L V Grinsell, in Folklore vol 90, no1, p66 (1979).
But we know it’s St Illtyd’s grave. Tradition has it that he lived, died and was buried here. It’s known as the Grave of St Illtyd’s Feast Day, because it was the custom to ‘watch their on the Vigil of the saint’s day’, which is either the 6 or 7 November.
The chapel is dedicated to St. Illtyd, and sometimes gives the name of Llan Illtyd to this division of the parish. On an adjoining eminence, near a pool, are two large stones, placed six feet asunder, at each end of a small tumulus, which is called Bedd Gwyl Illtyd, or “The Grave of St. Illtyd’s Eve,” from the ancient custom of watching there on the eve of the festival of that saint, who was supposed to have been buried here.
(Lewis’s ‘Topographical Dictionary of Wales’, 1833).
St Illtyd himself was useful to have about, as he introduced to the Welsh a new and improved method of ploughing. He was described in another Triad as one of the three knights in the court of King Arthur ‘who kept the Greal’ (the other two were Cadoc and Peredur).
(from volume 3 of Baring-Gould’s ‘Lives of the British Saints’ 1913).
Garnwnda (Carn Gwnda) is named after Saint Gwyndaf Hen (Gwyndaf the Aged), who presumably used it as a nice quiet spot for a bit of hermitage and religious introspection. He lacked some of the sympathy for nature that some of the other Celtic saints had. He was returning from Fishguard one day and was just crossing one of the (many) streams in the area, when a fish leapt up and frightened his horse. Poor Gwnydaf was thrown to the ground and broke his leg. He cursed the brook so no fish would ever live in it again.
(mentioned in volume 3 of Baring-Gould’s ‘Lives of the British Saints’ 1913).
Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society.
Searchable contents lists, with some articles online.
Could the outcrop be the quarry in the following story? Ever hopeful. Bear with me.
A man in the parish of New Deer was returning home at night. On reaching an old quarry much overgrown with broom he heard a great noise coining from among the broom. He listened, and his ear caught the words “Mak’ it red cheekit an red lippit like the smith o’ Bonnykelly’s wife.” He knew at once what was going on, and what was to be done, and he ran with all his speed to the smith’s house and “sained” the mother and her baby--an act which the nurse had neglected to do. No sooner was the saining finished than a heavy thud, as if something had fallen, was heard outside the house opposite to the spot where stood the bed on which the mother and her baby lay. On examination a piece of bog-fir was found lying at the bottom of the wall. It was the “image” the fairies were to substitute for the smith’s wife.
from Notes on The Folk-Lore of the North-East of Scotland By Walter Gregor [1881], online at the Sacred Texts Archive.
sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/nes/index.htm
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).
If you’re in the area you might also like to scout about for Maun’s Stone, which was said to be the giant’s putting stone. In 1871 it was described as “A large roundish stone with several holes (? cup marks) in it, built on an old fence, forming a side of the public road from New Deer to Brockley.” When the area was checked in the 1970s it wasn’t found. But who knows.
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
The Devil was crossing this area when a high wind tore at his apron strings and he dropped all the stones he was carrying. Well if this hadn’t happened, the bridge at Kirkby Lonsdale might have been wider..
You see, an old woman’s cow had strayed over the River Lune. By the time she realised and went looking for it, the river was in spate and she couldn’t get across. As she stood there cursing under her breath, the Devil appeared. Being a very considerate creature, he offered to build her a bridge by the morning. Great! How generous. Ah, but there was a price – he would take the soul of the first living thing that crossed the bridge. The old woman nodded. So the Devil started work. He took off his collar as it was a bit tight. You can see this if you look down the river – it’s on the right bank between the old bridge and the new bridge, apparently. You can also see his fingernail marks on a coping stone in the second recess on the right of the bridge when heading towards Casterton. And of course at some point he had to get some more stones – which is what you see at ‘The Devil’s Apron Strings’, or the Apron Full of Stones.
Well the next morning dawned and the bridge was ready. The Devil rubbed his hands together as he saw the old woman approaching. She appeared to be alone. But as she walked up she suddenly produced a bun from her bag and lobbed it across the bridge. The Devil barely had time to gasp ‘Eh?’ before a tiny dog leapt from inside the woman’s shawl and started legging it towards the bun.
The Devil couldn’t bear to watch. He couldn’t even be bothered to collect the dog (which was by this time stuffing itself with bun) and turning on his heel, left in disgust.
(This story mentioned by the Rev. John Hutton of Kendal in 1870 – I read it in Marjorie Rowling’s ‘Folklore of the Lake District’ (1976)).
The bridge at Kirbylonsdale was built by an architect of high antiquity: the legend of it relates, that the devil one very windy night was crossing the high mountain on the side of the Lune, with an apronfull of stones; either the blast, or the weight of the stones, broke the string fo the apron, and out fell half the load; with the remainder Old Nick proceeded to the river, and with those stones built the bridge; but not having the whole of his burden, the bridge could not be erected higher than it is. The spilt stones still lie in a heap on the mountain top.
A Companion, and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland, p27, by Sarah Murray (1799).
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol 107 (1975/6)
A large document with many illustrations which surely must tell you almost everything there is to know about ‘The Stones of Stenness, Orkney’.
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.
Stuart Piggot’s paper, linked to below, mentions there were rich silver mines in the 17th century on the SE slope of Cairnpapple Hill. Martin’s folklore about a ‘silver man’ on the SE slope is thus put in a different light? The location just seems a bit of a strange coincidence. Is the story a modern reworking of a different older story, the ‘silver’ element translated into something more space age? Or is it even a modern version of a subterranean mine fairy-type creature?
Stuart Piggott’s 1940s excavations at Cairnpapple – the document has some beautifully drawn plans.
Gwladys was one of (Saint) Brychan’s many sons and daughters. She was very pretty and attracted the attention of the ruler of the next-door kingdom, Gwynllyw. Gwynllyw asked Brychan if he could marry her, but Brychan wasn’t having any of it. Rather impolitely Gwynllyw decided he was going to marry her anyway, so took three hundred of his men over to Brychan’s place and snatched her. They rode off in a hurry with Brychan in hot pursuit.
They finally got to Fochriw* which was the border between the two kingdoms. Who should be sitting there playing dice but King Arthur and two of his knights, Cai and Bedwyr. Arthur ‘was immediately seized with love towards the lady’ and was about to rescue her, but it was pointed out to him that Gwynllyw was now on his own territory, and was persuaded against it (never mind that the poor woman had been kidnapped). In fact Arthur and his knights joined in with rushing against Brychan’s men, who ran off. Gwynllyw then took his ‘prize’ to his palace at Allt Wynllyw (now in Newport).
“Four lamps were seen shining every night with great brightness in the four corners of the house where she remained, until she brought forth her first born son”. This was Cadoc, who was later a saint. Gwladys got to be a saint too. It ran in the family.
*also called Vochriw and Boch Riu Carn hill, in Baring-Gould’s ‘Lives of the British Saints’ (Vol 3, 1911).
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
After wee haue quitted Restormel, Roche becomes our next place of soiourne, though hardly inuiting, with promise of any better entertainement, then the name carieth written in his forehead, to wit, a huge, high and steepe rock, seated in a playne, girded on either side, with (as it were) two substitutes, and meritorious (no doubt) for the Hermite, who dwelt on the top thereof, were it but in regard of such an vneasie climing to his cell and Chappell, a part of whose naturall wals is wrought out of the rock itselfe.
Neere the foote of Roche, there lyeth a rock, leuell with the ground aboue, and hollow downwards, with a winding depth, which contayneth water, reported by some of the neighbours, to ebbe and flowe as the sea. Of these, as another Cornish wonder.
You neighbour-scorners, holy-prowd,
Goe people Roche’s cell,
Farre from the world, neere to the heau’ns,
There, Hermits, may you dwell.
Is’t true that Spring in rock hereby,
Doth tide-wise ebbe and flow?
Or haue wee fooles with lyers met?
Fame saies it: be it so.
From The Survey of Cornwall by Richard Carew (1602), online at project Gutenberg
gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/srvcr10.txt
Scroll down to 139.
Scroll down a little to see three Edwardian gentlemen posing casually amongst the stones.
The webpage includes many other interesting old photographs of sites on the mainland. Part of ‘Cornovia – a Cornish Sourcebook’.
Protestors who have been camping on the Hill of Tara since the Summer Solstice on June 21, have been ordered to leave by the Office of Public Works (OPW), according to protest group TaraWatch.
From BreakingNews.ie
breakingnews.ie/2006/07/14/story267769.html
A Description of the Encampments on the Hill of Burnswork. From Archaeologica Scotica: transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, volume 1 (1792), and complete with quaint f-shaped s’s.
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.
You can see that the area around Oliver’s Castle has attracted a lot of folklore over the years. It seemingly continues to collect Strange Stories.
Oliver’s Castle is (according to Miller and Broadhurst’s book ‘The Sun and the Serpent’) one of those spots where the country-traversing Michael and Mary Leys cross each other. “There was a node just yards from the prehistoric dew pond, in the middle of the central enclosure.”
It’s also a focus for people into UFOs – a quick google will transport you into the convoluted discussions about a video that was allegedly shot there in 1996, showing supposed balls of light flying about a crop circle. (If you want your croppie illlusions shattered, then see the video here:
uk.youtube.com/watch?v=otQ-U6IIkb4&feature=PlayList&p=1D2C0DD2789F5507&index=29 )
Not that you have to believe any of it, of course. But maybe some places just keep attracting such rumours.
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.
The vitrified fort on Knock-Farril, in Ross-shire, is said to have been one of Fin McCoul’s castles;[32] and Knock-Farril, or rather “a knoll opposite Knock-Farril” is remembered as the abode of the Fairies of that district.[33]
[32] Proceedings of Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. vii. p. 294, note.
[33] See, for example, an article on “Scottish Customs and Folk lore,” in The Glasgow Herald of August 1, 1891
From ‘Fians, Fairies and Picts’, by David MacRitchie, 1893.
The book is online at Project Gutenberg
gutenberg.org/files/17926/17926-h/17926-h.htm#Footnote_32_32
Saint David and his mates were living at Carn Llidi, but something made them decide to move south to here – perhaps it was a bit too exposed there. They struck camp in the valley and lit a fire. Up above lived Boia, an Irish freebooter, who had settled there with his wife and was currently terrorizing the neighbourhood. Boia spotted the smoke curling up but had just put his slippers on after a day of pillaging, so decided to ignore it. Next morning however his wife spotted the remains of the fire and nagged at him to go down and get rid of the newcomers. Boia eventually walked down to have a word. David easily pacified him, and after a nice conversation Boia said it would be fine if David and his friends stayed at the valley bottom. Boia returned to the top. His wife was unimpressed, particularly when she found out they were monks.
Boia’s wife, who was called Satrapa, had a cunning idea. She sent her maids down to the river in their sexiest gear and instructed them to strip off and bathe. After popping their eyes back in their heads, some of the monks went to St David to complain. They said they found this ‘an intolerable nuisance’ as it was clearly distracting them from Higher Things. In fact they said that it would make the place unendurable if it happened every day. “Just ignore them. They’ll get fed up of it and go away,” said St. David.
Meanwhile, Boaia was becoming a regular guest at their camp, and even decided to get baptized in the river. This was the last straw for Satrapa. She decided she would have to make a sacrifice to the Siddi, the underground divinities. She asked her stepdaughter Dunawd to come with her to gather some nuts. When they were resting, Satrapa asked to look at Dunawd’s head (’You seem to have some nuts in your hair’??) and when the stepdaughter put her head in Satrapa’s lap, the woman seized her hair and cut it off. This was ‘tantamount to adoption’ (so it says) and she quickly cut the girl’s throat, letting her blood pour out onto the ground for the gods.
Frightened at what she’d done (though possibly she should have thought about this before) Satrapa ran away. Things didn’t get any better for the family that night, as another Irish pirate, Lisci, turned up and slew Boia in his sleep. Then ‘fire fell from heaven’ and consumed the castle.
Dunawd was seen as a martyr: “A clear fountain arose in the place where her blood flowed to the ground, which abundantly cured many diseases of mankind.” Ffynnon Clegyr Boia and Ffynnon Llygad are both near the site: no doubt the spring is one of those?
(retold from the sources in Baring-Gould’s ‘Lives of the British Saints’ p298)
I walked here along the Cotswold Way from the Bevil Grenville monument: it’s a very pleasant walk, though it was extremely hot at the time. You do feel as though you are treading in the footsteps of people of long ago, as you walk along a secluded sunken green lane with water trickling down it. To add to Moss’s nature notes, in the summer sunshine the route was full of fluttering butterflies of many different species.
The mounds were overgrown with nettles. It felt like a very domestic or specifically personal spot – the views are quite enclosed and limited really, and you could imagine that the people in the barrows were definitely the farmers of the valley below. The windows of the buildings down there stared up at me and I felt I was intruding. I followed a little path in the grass in an effort to find St. E..’s holy well*. I found a circular concrete capped well and assumed that was it (it was nice to think the water was still being used, even if it didn’t look as romantic as I’d hoped). In retrospect I may have been looking in the wrong place – there are a lot of springs round here.
As I made back for the car I realised I could see Morgan’s Hill from the top of Lansdown – practically Avebury and a long way away.
*finally found the name – St Eanswyth. Phil Quinn’s book on the ‘holy wells of Bath and Bristol region’ mentions it being at ST734705. It’s on the parish boundary and is on the Anglo Saxon estate charter of 931 as Eanswythe Wyllas (St Eanswyth’s Well).
Foel Fenlli is a high conical hill topped by a hill fort – it’s the highest in a chain of hillforts that run along the Clwydian range. The summit has a cairn, and nearby is “a never failing crystal spring”. The fort is named after Benlli Gawr. Nennius describes him as the ‘wicked and tyrannical king’ of Powys. Perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn’t. Whichever, Saint Germanus was in the neighbourhood, and he and his friends turned up at the front door of the fort demanding to see the man. They just wanted to convert him to Christianity. For his own good, you know. It wasn’t an evangelical competition to convert the naughtiest pagan they could find or anything. A message was sent to Benlli. He sent back his response: Not Today Thankyou – they could stand on his doorstep for a whole year if they liked, but they weren’t coming in.
Well. That night, ‘fire fell from heaven and consumed the citadel and all the men that were with the tyrant; they were never seen more’. Sounds very like arson to me. And to add to the suspicious circumstances, Germanus then took it upon himself to make Benlli’s swineherd the new king of Powys. Just because he’d been nice to Germanus, made him a cup of tea and agreed to become a Christian. What a set-up.
(Nennius’s tale described in vol 2 of ‘Lives of the British Saints’ by Baring-Gould (1913), p255.)
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?
Lovely Iron Age glass bead found on the slopes of Birdlip Hill.
Various photos of the 1930s excavations, and the Iron Age finds.
Various items from a Bronze Age metalwork hoard found on the Hill.
Say hello to two of the original residents.
There are also some illustrations of the excavation here.
A crackly (and presumably well-travelled) shale bead found by Witts in the 1881 excavation.
Also, a leaf shaped arrowhead
cheltenhammuseum.org.uk/collections/img.asp?Url=1/1978-703.jpg
a sherd of late Neolithic pottery with tyre track pattern
cheltenhammuseum.org.uk/collections/img.asp?Url=1/1978-697-1.jpg
and a 1913 drawing of the barrow by Edward Burrow, which makes it look noble and intact with its stones, not the disaster described by Jane.
cheltenhammuseum.org.uk/collections/img.asp?Url=1/1923-4-15.jpg
An interesting photo by Witts himself, of the 1880 excavation. Also see
cheltenhammuseum.org.uk/Collections/img.asp?Url=1/1996-261-1-2.jpg
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’.
A pdf about the excavation of the barrow, from the Transactions of the
Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 1938, with photos and plans.
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.
Stukeley’s illustration of the Devil’s Den: “The Kist-Vaen in Clatford Bottom”. One of a number of views of the site in ‘Abury – A Temple of the British Druids’ (1743), online courtesy of Lithop.
Stukeley’s take on WK Longbarrow – as he puts it, fit for an Archdruid.
Part of ‘Abury – A Temple of the British Druids’ (1743) online courtesy of Lithop.
