‘Beacon Hill Woods – an archaeological survey 2002-2003’ by Mark Corney.
Rhiannon
In 1514 John and Agnes Panter of Doulting were accused of resorting annually on the Eve of St John the Baptist’s Day to Mendip to consult with demons. The part of Mendip in Doulting parish is Beacon Hill, crowned with a notable group of barrows, extending westward into the adjoining parish of Ashwick. It seems reasonable to suspect that the Panters were ‘communing’ with spirits supposedly residing in these barrows.
L V Grinsell, in ‘Somerset Barrows – revisions 1971-87’, v131 (1987) of Som Arch Nat Hist.
Murtry Hill was visited in 1808 by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. He said “There were formerly seven [stones] attributed by vulgar report as memorials to seven Saxon Kings who fell in battle.”
Gleaned by L V Grinsell: see ‘Somerset Barrows – revisions 1971-1987’ in v131 (1987) of Som Arch Nat Hist.
To support my theory below, I was encouraged to read in the same article that Grinsell felt ‘Miss Tongue tended to make the most of such matters’ with regard to megalithic folklore, and didn’t include her stories from ‘Somerset Folklore’ in his work. What a polite way of putting it.
John Strachey quoted ‘an old Tradition that 2 Kings had a Battle, the one being possessed of ye hill, I presume Tedbury, made a great slaughter of ye Other in Murders bottom* which is under Tedbury from rolling stones upon them and hanged ye Prisoners in Hangmans Lane whence they brought ye Stones and heaped them over ye dead in ye West Feild barrow.‘
The West Field barrow is on Barrow Hill, but as Strachey tended to be confused on his compass points he may have meant the long barrow on Murtry Hill.
From the late great L V Grinsell, in ‘Somerset Barrows- Revisions 1971-87’, volume 131 (1987) of Som Arch Nat Hist journal.
*Now Murder Combe on the OS map.
A photo of Wallbury Dells in 1899 (the road that follows the curve of the earthworks and into the fort is called ‘Dell Lane’).
This news story at This is local London describes a sighting of ‘a large black animal’ -which would be in the vicinity of the barrows. The newspaper puts it down to the modern legend of the big cat ‘beast of Ongar’ but (why not) I’d like to suggest it’s a Black Dog associated with the barrows themselves. Essex (and East Anglia generally) has a number of supernatural black dogs, don’t you know.
Although only ‘tumulus’ is marked on the 1:25000 map, there are actually the remains of three barrows here next to the Cripsey Brook.
It seems there are photos online, though they look rather old. How are the barrows faring today?
Harlow Temple is admittedly a Roman site. But there’s good reason to believe that it was built on top of an Iron Age shrine.
“In the Iron Age Harlow lay on the tribal boundary between the Catuvellauni in Hertfordshire and the Trinovantes in Essex. At the temple hill there were two roundhouses of mid to late Iron Age date and numerous Iron Age coins, small finds and animal bones. The quantity and pattern of distribution of the coins, coupled with what appears to have been deliberate damage to the small finds suggests that the site had a religious rather than domestic function.”
see:
unlockingessex.essexcc.gov.uk/content_page.asp?content_page_id=120&content_parents=48,94
Beneath the Iron Age remains excavators found Bronze Age pits, some of which had fragments of burial urns. The EH book ‘Shrines and Sacrifice’ (Ann Woodward, 1992) also mentions Neolithic / early Bronze age flints which were also found, and suggests these lay on the original land surface under a purported destroyed barrow. Whatever, they do suggest a continuity of use of the site over a very long period (even if the flints do not relate to the later burials).
There are three round barrows close to the hospital in Harlow – I wonder how recognisable they’ll be to a keen eye. I’m intrigued by the subspecies of the urban barrow. I wonder if they’ll be camouflaged, abused or carefully mown...
There’s one 110m NE of the hospital at TL442101 (said to be 25m diameter, 2m high); another is 140m N of the hospital at TL440103 (14m d, 1m h); the third is 230m N, at TL440104 (20m d, 1.3m high).
The scheduled monument record (on Magic) describes the Wroth Stone as the remains of a medieval boundary cross base. The mound is described as medieval too, but “It has been suggested that the mound may have originated prior to the construction of the cross, perhaps as a burial tumulus which was later adapted as a base for the cross.” As the medieval English were not generally in the habit of building barrows, is this a half-admission of a prehistoric origin?
Craigengelt [estate].. includes a considerable mass of the Lennox Hills, and contains a circular cairn or mound called the Ghost’s Knowe, which, 300 feet in circumference, is engirt by twelve very large stones. This is one only out of several artificial mounds, clothed with fine grass, and called the Sunny Hills; and Craigengelt is believed to have been, in olden times, the scene of many tragical events.
(From Francis Groome’s Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4), an excerpt here).
About two years ago the tenant was engaged in levelling and improving a field on the eastern extremity of Craigengelt in which there was a large cairn or mound, known in the country by the name of the “Ghost’s Knowe.” It was quite circular, exactly 300 feet in circumference at the base, and which was flanked around by twelve very large stones, placed at equal distances, and it was 12 feet high, with a slight inclination to one side, and fiat on top. On removing the turf and soil, it was found that the interior consisted of large and small stories built together with great care, which led the proprietor to think that it must have been a place of Druidical sepulture.
About 6 feet from the centre, there stood four upright stones, each about 3 feet in height, describing an oblong figure like a bed. Within this a coffin was found, the length of which was about 7 feet, at broad, and at deep. The under part or bottom of the coffin was whin-flag, as was also the upper part or lid. Within this were found the remains of a human body of the ordinary size. The hones, except a very small part of the skull, were of the consistence of soft chalk,-the body had been enveloped in something like a mixture of decayed vegetable matter and tar, which, when exposed to the atmosphere, emitted a strong odour.
Strict orders were given to the labourers that if anything like a coffin should be found, they were not to open it until either the proprietor or tenant were present. But one of them, an old schoolmaster, who knew something of antiquities, went during the night, and carried off a variety of articles, the nature and number of which are not now likely ever to be ascertained. With reluctance, he gave up a stone axe of beautiful workmanship and a gold ring. The ring had had a jewel in it; but the jewel was out, and it was what is called “chased,” and must have been worn on a very small finger. A labourer in the neighbourhood sold a variety of things of a rare description to a gentleman in whose possession, it is believed, they still are. The axe and the ring were the only things obtained by the proprietor, J. Dick, Esq. of Craigengelt, and they are still in his possession.
From the Statistical Account of Stirlingshire (1841), online at Tom Paterson’s webpages.
web.ukonline.co.uk/tom.paterson/places/sastninians.htm
The RCAHMS record says “The divergence between the stone relics and the gold ones suggests that whereas the cairn originally contained a battle-axe burial, a secondary deposit, probably of Roman or medieval date, had been made in it.”
A view from on high of the neat site, courtesy of the ‘Hi-Spy’ camera.
A enlightening view from the ‘Hi-Spy’ camera.
An enlightening kind of aerial view from the ‘Hi-Spy’ camera.
From ‘Rude Stone Monuments in all Countries – their age and uses’ by James Fergusson, 1872.
I think all antiquarians will agree with Sir Gardner Wilkinson in assuming that this is the stone of Cetti mentioned in the Welsh Triads... the 88th* Triad speaks of the three mightly achievements of the Isle of Britain; the raising of the stone of Cetti, the building of the work of Emmrys, and the heaping of the pile of Cyvragnon.
He suggests the work of Emmrys is Stonehenge and the pile of Cyvragnon, Silbury Hill.
*Not sure if this is true yet – need to find the original? The triads are rather dodgy as if they are the ones collected by Iolo Williams, he did make some of them up.
From ‘Rude Stone Monuments in all Countries – their age and uses’ by James Fergusson, 1872.
“All are agreed that the principle monument was an alignment, according to some a double row of stones, of which others can only trace a single row... commencing at the Thunder Stone in the North where there are seven large stones ina field; six are arranged as a double row... According to popular tradition the stone avenue originally extended to Muir Divock, a distance of rather more than five miles, to which it certainly points. Though this is most improbable, it is not wholly without reason, as on Muir Divock there are five or six circles of stone and several tumuli..”
He whinges repeatedly about the weather – I think he must have had a bad experience. He mentions Stukely complaining about the weather and agrees that “rain on a bleak exposed moor like Shap is singularly inimical to antiquarian pursuits.” Later he says “.. a bleaker and more ungenial spot is not inhabited in any part of these islands.” I’ll spare you the rest.
Some druidical musings about Bronze age articles found on Roseberry.
Archaeologica Scotica: transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
Volume 4 (1857)
On some of the Stone Circles and Cairns
in the Neighbourhood of Inverness, by George Anderson.
A positively antique article (with plans) from:
Archaeologica Scotica: transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
Volume 3 (1831)
An account of the Hill Fort of the Barmekyne in Aberdeenshire.
By James Skene of Rubislaw, Esquire.
Archaeologica Scotica: transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
Volume 2 (1822)
An antiquarian article most notable for the super drawings of the fort.
The Dewerstone is a lofty mass of rock rising above the bed of the Plym, on the southern edge of Dartmoor. During a deep snow, the traces of a naked human foot and of a cloven hoof were found ascending to the highest point. The valley below is haunted by a black headless dog.
Chudleigh Rocks contains a number of caves. The Pixie’s Hole is a very rare example of an Upper Palaeolithic `living floor’ in a British cave. It is one of three caves in the valley known
to contain significant Palaeolithic deposits – the others are called Cow Cave and Tramp’s Shelter. The Magic map has records for all three.
At Chudleigh Rocks I was told, a few weeks ago, by the old man who acts as guide to the caves, of a recent instance of a man’s being pixy-led. In going home, full of strong drink, across the hill above the cavern called the “Pixies’ Hole,” on a moonlit night, he heard sweet music, and was led into the whirling dance by the “good folk,” who kept on spinning him without mercy, till he fell down “in a swoon.”
On “coming to himself,” he got up and found his way home, where he “took to his bed, and never left it again, but died a little while after,” the victim (I suppose) of delirium tremens, or some such disorder, the incipient symptoms of which his haunted fancy turned into the sweet music in the night wind and the fairy revel on the heath. In the tale I have above given he persisted (said the old man), when the medical attendant who was called in inquired of him the symptoms of his illness. This occurrence happened, I understood, very recently, and was told to me in perfect good faith.
Yeah, yeah, explain it away, say he was really drunk. Not everyone who sees the pixies is drunk, you know. From Notes and Queries 61, December28, 1850 (online here at Project Gutenberg).
The barrow was first visited by Sir Richard Colt Hoare in 1801, then again in 1816 accompanied by the Rev. John Skinner. The last named antiquary began its examination by making an opening through the roof into the central avenue, which was, we are told, cleared of rubbish, no doubt partly caused by this difficult and hazardous undertaking..
RCH wrote a paper (published in Archaeologia) and during its reading exhibited two skulls he had found in the barrow. He stated the entrance had been closed by a large stone which “was removed in my presence and the original entrance restored” (presumably he noticed this from the inside, or it would have been the logical route of entry, rather than through the roof). He mentioned that some years previously the tumulus “had been resorted to as a stone quarry by a farmer” but fortunately the owner had stopped this and repaired the gap.
The large entrance stone has unfortunately disappeared. “Our investigations proved that the interments had been disturbed and their deposits (ie funereal furnishings) probably removed; for in the long avenue we met with many fragments of bones, etc., which had been displaced from the sepulchral recesses, many of which had been filled up with stones and other rubbish.” We would like to know now what became of the etceteras and rubbish.
Hoare’s paper being quoted here by Arthur Bulleid in ‘Notes on some chambered long barrows of North Somerset’ (Som Arch Nat Hist Soc Proc 1941 v87 p56-71).
Up to 1787 it was as far as is known quite complete, but in that year it fell on evil days and was doomed to deplorable and wanton ruination and unpardonable obliteration..
..The entrance stone had a hole through its centre and blocked the opening to the avenue where the unmortared walls terminated..
.. When visiting the site some years ago the writer was informed by a man that tradition says all the bones from the barrow were buried in a hole on the North side of the field, and it is quite possible that this was done on Bere’s advice and in order to save them*.
*The Reverend T Bere ‘discovered’ the barrow and recognised its importance, writing letters of his findings to the Gentleman’s Magazine and the Bath Chronicle in the latter part of the 18th century. He was the Rector of Butcombe (his church is only a stone’s throw away). The choice of the word ‘save’ is quite ambiguous – was he trying to save them from being thrown away / taken as souvenirs and so on – or trying to ‘Save’ them by giving them a burial (albeit not a Christian one). Ok it’s probably the former. But why not stick them in a box?
It is the Rev Bere’s drawing that has been posted by JD525 above.
Text from ‘Notes on some chambered long barrows of North Somerset.’ Arthur Bulleid.
Som. Arch. Nat. Hist. Soc. Proc. 1941 v87 p56-71.
If you want the genuine* Wiltshire feel then you may like this version of Cley Hill’s origins from ‘Wiltshire Folk’ by Mrs Ethel Richardson (1934):
Well, zur, it wer like this ye zee; the ‘Vizes volk had offended the devil mainly, an’ a swore ‘ad zar ‘em out. So a went down the country, an’ a vound a gert hump, an’a putt it on’s back an’ a carried along to vling at ‘em. An’ a come along be Warminster, an’ a met a m an, an’ a zays to un: “Can ‘ee tell I the rhoad to the Vizes?” ‘an t’other zaid “Lor ther now, that’s just what I do want to know myself, for I started for un when my beard wer black, an’ now as gray, an’ I hant got there yet”.
“Lor,” says the Devil (t’wer the Devil ye knaw) “if that’s how ‘tis, I beant gwine to car thick no vurder, so here goes”; an’ a vling thuck gurt hump off’s shoulder, an’ thur a be, look zee, an that’s how Cley Hill got there.
*debateable.
According to Coflein this cairn, on the part of the mountain called the Llorfa, is nine metres in diameter.
A man who lived at Ystradgynlais, in Brecknockshire, going out one day to look after his cattle and sheep on the mountain, disappeared. In about three weeks, after search had been made in vain for him and his wife had given him up for dead, he came home. His wife asked him where he had been for the past three weeks. “Three weeks! Is it three weeks you call three hours?” said he. Pressed to say where he had been, he told her he had been playing on his flute (which he usually took with him on the mountain) at the Llorfa, a spot near the Van Pool, when he was surrounded at a distance by little beings like men, who closed nearer and nearer to him until they became a very small circle. They sang and danced, and so affected him that he quite lost himself. They offered him some small cakes to eat, of which he partook; and he had never enjoyed himself so well in his life.
This is from ‘The Science of Fairy Tales’ by Edwin Sidney Hartland
(1891), now online at the Sacred Texts Archive. sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sft/sft08.htm
I can’t spot ‘the Van Pool’ using the map (and the possibly similar sounding Fan Foel is a long way off).
The famous Druidical Monument, called Arthur’s Stone, mentioned by Camden, is in this Parish, and is situate on the North side of Cefn y Brynn: it is supported by six rough Pillars; there are four other Pillars standing alone, which supported a part of the Stone, now broken off, by what means, unknown, though it is said that it was broken off for the purpose of making Mill-stones, but was afterwards found unfit for the intention: several smaller pieces have from time to time been broken off, chiefly through mere wickedness, so that it is much decreased in size; it is supposed to weigh now about Twenty Tons, and to have been brought from a distance, as it is of a different quality to the Stone found upon the Hill: underneath it is a Spring of water, seldom dry. A great quantity of loose stones, thrown there by the Country people, served to hide some part of the Pillars, but were cleared away at the expense of Mr. Lucas.
From ‘A Topographical Dictionary of The Dominion of Wales’ by Nicholas Carlisle (1811) – a section on the Genuki pages at genuki.org.uk/big/wal/GLA/Reynoldston/Lewis1833.html
On the summit of Cevn Bryn is a large cromlech, called Arthur’s Stone, a vestige of Druidical antiquity, which Camden and other writers describe as being composed of a different species of stone from any found in this part of the country : this, however, appears to be erroneous, as it is the common pudding-stone, or millstone grit, of the country; and, within the recollection of persons still living, a huge fragment, which had been broken off with great labour, by means of wedges, and intended for a millstone, was found totally unfit for that purpose, from the cavities left in the surface by the falling out of the pebbles of which it consisted. The principal, or covering stone, is eleven feet in length and six feet and a half in its greatest breadth : it rests on twelve supporters, for fixing which the earth appears to have been excavated, and by the side of the cromlech lies the mass above noticed. A supposed miraculous well beneath this monument, which was said to ebb and flow with the sea, appears to be nothing more than a collection of water, after heavy rains, in the cavity formed for the insertion of the supporters, which fluctuates according to the weather, and which, as attested by intelligent persons residing near the spot, is frequently dry in hot summers. This cromlech is supposed to be alluded to in the historical triads of Wales, as one of the three Herculean labours. There are several mineral springs in the parish, to which medicinal properties are ascribed : of these, the most celebrated is Holy Well, on Cevn y Bryn mountain, to which, in former times, miraculous efficacy was attributed : it was generally frequented on Sunday evenings during the summer season by numbers of persons, who drank the water, and, according to an ancient custom, threw in a pin as a tribute of their gratitude.
There are numerous remains on Carn Fadryn – the large Iron Age fort was overlain by a castle in the 12th century.
The fort is associated with Queen / Saint Madrun (supposedly the granddaughter of Vortigern). Maybe the name is also linked with the Roman mother goddess of Matrona..
“Ceidio, in the promontory of Lleyn, is under the remarkable isolated hill of Carn Madryn, which takes its name from Madrun. The local tradition is that on the burning of the palace of Gwrtheyrn, under Tre’r Ceiri, Madrun fled with Ceidio, then a child in arms, to the fortress on Carn Madryn, and that later in life Ceidio founded the church that bears his name beneath the mountain...” (from Baring-Gould’s section on S. Ceidio in ‘Lives of the British Saints‘).
Such a vantage point is also ideal for throwing stones from – Penllech Coetan Arthur originated up here.
This informative page includes a long-distance view of the striking mountain.
‘Naboth’s Vineyard’ is an episode from the bible (which you can read online at the Electronic Text Centre , courtesy of the University of Virginia)
It’s a rather gruesome tale in which King Ahab hankers after the lowly Naboth’s nice vineyard, and because Naboth won’t sell it to him, he conspires to have him done away with.
Does this tale relate to some kind of similar legendary incident in Llanharry? Could the barrows even have been incorporated into a local story? And if not, why would the field be called this strange name?
A photo of the intricately decorated and burnished beaker found in the barrow in 1929. There’s also a picture of the excavators.
There used to be two barrows here but the other one was destroyed when they put in a gas pipeline.
When you sit at this lovely spot you can imagine the Irish king’s ships turning up – he was invited over to marry the British king’s beautiful sister Branwen. It looks like the ideal outdoor spot for camping and a feast.
..She was one of the three chief ladies of this island, and she was the fairest damsel in the world.
And they fixed upon Aberffraw as the place where she should become his bride. And they went thence, and towards Aberffraw the hosts proceeded; Matholwch and his host in their ships; Bendigeid Vran and his host by land, until they came to Aberffraw. And at Aberffraw they began the feast and sat down. And thus sat they. The King of the Island of the Mighty and Manawyddan the son of Llyr on one side, and Matholwch on the other side, and Branwen the daughter of Llyr beside him. And they were not within a house, but under tents. No house could ever contain Bendigeid Vran. And they began the banquet and caroused and discoursed. And when it was more pleasing to them to sleep than to carouse, they went to rest, and that night Branwen became Matholwch’s bride.
Quote from Lady Guest’s translation of the Mabinogion, online at the Sacred Texts archive:
sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/mab/mab22.htm
Of course it all ended badly, as you can find out at Bedd Branwen.
From Camden’s ‘Britannia’ (1695):
“At a little distance upon the very descent of Chiltern Hills, there is a round military fortification.. called Madning-bowre and Madin-boure... The swineherds now and then in the neighbouring fields find coins of the emperors, which they call to this day Madning money.”
(Quoted in the Victoria County History for Bedfordshire, v1 (1904)).
There used to be a round barrow on the other side of the Icknield Way to the Five Knolls, about a third of a mile to the south east. There is a fantastic picture of what its excavators found, on p 168 of the Victoria County History for Bedfordshire (v1). It shows the skeleton of a small child being clasped by that of (presumably) its mother. “Near the head of the woman were two broken pots, near the right hand a stone muller and a white pebble; elsewhere in the grave were two other mullers, two scrapers and two very rudely chipped celts [axeheads].” But far more fantastic than this, about 200 fossil Echini (sea urchins) can be seen encircling the skeletons. Folklore has called such fossils ‘fairy loaves’ – could they have been seen similarly in the Bronze age – as helpful offerings of food for the next world, or perhaps they were added for another symbolic reason – or even because they were just really cool objects collected by one or other of the dead occupants?
Ever wondered what people did at Avebury before the invention of the dustman?
Thirteen men were employed last April in the reexcavation of the great fosse at Avebury.. on the east side of the Kennet Causeway... This immense fosse had been partly reexcavated in 1914, when owing to danger to children and animals, it had to be fenced in, and it was only during the spring that this work could be completed.
During this time .. a large amount of talus had formed. It was intended to measure this [to determine] what rate these chalk ditches silted up from natural causes; but.. during the interval of eight years the villagers found the ‘hole’ an attractive dump for their broken crockery, worn-out domestic utensils and rubbish. It took the greater part of the first week to remove the rubbish and the eight years’ accumulation of silting.
You’d imagine it was ever thus? From a report in The Times 14 August 1922, quoted in Proc Bris Glouc Arch Soc Trans 44 (1922).
Just at the foot of the fort is the village of Llanaelhaearn, and its holy well of St Aelhaiarn. Aelhaiarn is one of those Celtic saints with a bizarre life story. He started off as a servant of St Beuno (see Clynnog Fawr). St B liked to commune with God outdoors. Actually he often liked to pray in the middle of rivers. I can appreciate the trance-like state this might induce – perhaps that’s why he liked it. Or perhaps he just thought he could get a bit of peace and quiet in the middle of a river. However, one day his servant followed him. St B was so incensed at being disturbed that he didn’t recognise his friend and rashly muttered that God should teach the man a lesson. Upon that, a pack of wild animals rushed up and tore the poor man to pieces. Beuno must have relented at this point and pulling himself out of the river, ran round collecting up all the bits he could find. Rather cleverly he reassembled them, but just couldn’t find a missing eyebrow. He may have considered a caterpillar, but eventually plumped for the iron tip of his staff. I wonder if the iron nature of the item has any bearing? He then brought the man back to life, and he was known as Aelhaiarn, or ‘iron eyebrow’. Aelhaiarn became a priest and tended the well at the foot of Tre’r Ceiri. The water consequently became renowned for its powers of bodily restoration.
I have based this on the story given by Nigel Pennick in his ‘Celtic Saints’ (1997) but it would be better to find the original ‘Life’.
You can also read a much better (and slightly more complex) version on p228-30 of ‘Select Remains of the Learned John Ray, with his Life’ by William Derham. Published 1760.
which I have found online at google books, and which is from a journey made in 1661.
In Nigel Pennick’s ‘Celtic Saints’ (1997) he says that “megaliths are plentiful around the church, in its foundations, and the adjoining chapel of St Bueno” (including one in the floor of the nave, apparently).
Near Clynog, in Carnarvonshire, there is a place called Llwyn y Nef, (the Bush of Heaven,) which thus received its name: In Clynog lived a monk of most devout life, who longed to be taken to heaven. One evening, whilst walking without the monastery by the riverside, he sat down under a green tree and fell into a deep reverie, which ended in sleep and he slept for thousands of years. At last he heard a voice calling unto him, ‘Sleeper, awake and be up.’ He awoke. All was strange to him except the old monastery, which still looked down upon the river. He went to the monastery, and was made much of. He asked for a bed to rest himself on and got it. Next morning when the brethren sought him, they found nothing in the bed but a handful of ashes.
sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/wfl/wfl06.htm
‘British Goblins’ by Wirt Sikes (1880), online at the Sacred Texts Archive. It’s a story usually connected with fairy goings-on, but this time has been polished up with the inclusion of a monk.
An earlier source of purejoy’s folklore is ‘Wiltshire: The topographical collections of John Aubrey’, corrected and enlarged by J E Jackson (1862). He writes: “At the top of the wood at Colerne Park there is said to be a large hillock called ‘The Dane’s Tump’ where tradition buries a Danish King.”
The large barrow above the plantation produced a skeleton, and a cup of rude form. On this spot were erected double gallows for the execution of George Ruddock aged 20, and George Carpenter, 21, for the murder of Mr Webb, a farmer, and his maidservant at Roddenbury, near Longleat. They were hanged on December 28 1813 in the presence of the Yeomanry, the Chairman of Quarter Sessions, the Vicar of Warminster, and a vast multitude of spectators.
The History of Warminster, J J Daniell (1879). p95.
On the last day of the 19th century, two of the uprights of the outer Circle fell. There is an old saying that the fall of one of these stones foretells the death of a Sovereign. In January 1901, however, just before the seeming fulfilment of the omen in the death of Queen Victoria, the two newly fallen stones were raised and set up again. At the same time a worse thing was done amid the protests of all the old lovers of Stonehenge. The great Leaning Stone which for nearly three centuries had reclined on the top of a short bluestone in front of it, and in this posture was the central figure, so to speak, of the Stonehenge known to all who had ever visited Salisbury Plain and to the whole world beside through the drawings of Turner and Constable – this hoary monster, bowed under the weight of innumerable years, was dragged up from its recumbency, bolted, concreted, and stiffened into an unnatural uprightness and now stands rigid and awkward as an aged man stayed up into an affectation of youth.
From ‘Salisbury Plain’ by Ella Noyes (1913).
“Swallow Head” is the name of a very copious spring which rises at a short distance to the south of Silbury, and is very frequently though erroneously called the source of the Kennet; for this mistake Stukeley is responsible, since he wrote:
“There are two heads of the river Kennet: one from a little north-west of Abury, at Monkton, runs southward to Silbury Hill: this affords little water, except in wet seasons. At Silbury Hill it joins the Swallow Head, or true fountain of the Kennet, which the country people call by the old name Cunnit, and it is not a little famous among them. This is a plentiful spring.”
...The actual sources are indeed two.. one which rises in Clyffe Pypard field, some four miles to the north-west, and the other in the parish of Broad Hinton, some four miles to the north east of Abury: at the latter village these two streams unite, and flow in one channel to Swallow Head, the very picturesque basin whose springs are generally very abundant, and largely increase the infant river: indeed there are seasons when the two real sources have been known to be dry, and the only water in the Kennet has come from this spring.
Other seasons have occurred within my memory when this, too, has failed, and the dry bed of the Kennet has been planted with potatoes.
I should add that Canon Jones attributes the name ‘Swallow Head’ to the same source as the Swill in N Wilts and the Swale in Kent and Yorkshire, and quotes Fergusson for the origin of the word from the old German swal, meaning ‘swell’ or ‘whirlpool’. If this is accepted, I can bear witness that the large round pool at Swallow Head oftentimes show considerable commotion of water from the very copious springs which bubble up to the surface.
p175 in Rev. A C Smith’s ‘Guide to the British and Roman Antiquities of the North Wiltshire Downs’ (1884).
On the brow of the hill is a group of five circular barrows, and one oblong, three of which Mr Cunnington had opened. The first produced a rude urn and two pins of bone perforated. The second, a cist, and one bone pin, but no urn. The third, a well-shaped bell barrow, contained two interments towards the top, which had been preserved by some very large flints. At the depth of three feet was an urn, which in taking out was unfortunately broken to pieces. Within this sepulchral urn was a badly-baked black cup, curiously ornamented, but an unlucky stroke of the labourer’s spade cut it in two: there was also a small pin of brass, and another of bone.
That was some unlucky stroke, if the cup was in the urn. You just can’t get the servants these days. Rev. A C Smith quotes Sir R Hoare, on p211 of ‘Guide to the British and Roman Antiquities of the North Wiltshire Downs’ (1884).
Dean Mereweather says that it lies “about three quarters of a mile south-east of the Long barrow at West Kennet, and is of much the same character as to shape and dimensions, but differs in construction. I was induced to visit this in consequence of having been informed by the occupier of the surrounding land that he had caused a hole to be dug at the east end for the purpose of obtaining flint; but that he soon found that it was made up of round and generally flat sarsen stones, which came tumbling so about the men that they gave up the work. It has unfortunately been planted over, as have many of the larger barrows on Hacpen Hill; I think it in bad taste.”
Rev A C Smith quotes Dean Mereweather from ‘Proc Arch Inst. Salisbury volume’, in his 1884 ‘Guide to the British and Roman Antiquities of the North Wiltshire Downs’.
On the brow of the down, overlooking the vale, stands one solitary barrow, just within the precincts of the park at Compton Bassett: it is of moderate dimensions, bowl-shaped, and appears never to have been opened: it is planted with trees, and the wood in which it stands is in consequence marked in the Ordnance Map ‘Mount Wood’.
I take this early opportunity of expressing my regret that so many of the fine barrows on our downs are covered with trees, to their great disfigurement, nay, to their absolute concealment: for the barrow is soon lost to sight under the plantation which overwhelms it. This is the more to be regretted, because there is no object gained by thus mutilating the mounds, destroying their symmetry and hiding the elegance of their proportions: for, once encumbered with trees, they soon become mere unsightly excrescences, unmeaning heaps to raise the burden they support in a most unnatural way above the surrounding level; and while the injury to themselves is fatal, there is no compensating advantage of benefit derived by the plantation.
p44 in Rev. A C Smith’s ‘Guide to the British and Roman Antiquities of the North Wiltshire Downs’ (1884).
There are various traditions connected with it. I was told some years since, by an old man hoeing turnips near, that if anybody mounted to the top of it, he might shake it in one particular part. I do not know whether this is the case or not, though it is not unusual where the capstone is upheld by only three supporters. But another labourer whom I once interrogated informed me that nobody could ever pull off the capstone; that many had tried to do so without success; and that on one occasion twelve white oxen were provided with new harness, and set to pull it off, but the harness all fell to pieces immediately! As my informant evidently thought very seriously of this, and considered it the work of enchantment, I found it was not a matter for trifling to his honest but superstitious mind; and he remained perfectly unconvinced by all the arguments with which I tried to shake his credulity.
An atheist might find the latter section quite ironic, coming from the Rev. A C Smith as it does. It is part of his (excellent) ‘Guide to the British and Roman Antiquities of the North Wiltshire Downs’ (1884).
King Barrow is a very large tumulus, 200ft long and 15 wide, about 200 yards north of the village of Boreham, which on being thrown open by a section to the centre, and then to right and left, in 1800, yielded only intermingled pieces of bones of birds and beasts, boars’ tusks, stags’ horns, charred wood, fragments of the coarsest pottery, and the skeleton of a horse. A second excavation disclosed three human skeletons, on the thigh of one of which was an iron sword, with the blade 18” long, 2 wide and single edged: lying near was a part of a rude urn, but prettily ornamented. These remains being supposed to be but a subsequent deposit, at great expense and toil, a third cutting was made at a deeper level, and black ashes, burnt wood and bones, and bits of earthenware were exposed, but the primary interments remained undiscovered.
If you get an undercurrent of unimpressedness at the repeated excavations, you’d probably be right: see what John Daniell wrote about Cop Heap.
From ‘The History of Warminster’ by John J Daniell (1879).
1663. King Charles IId discoursing one morning with my Lord Brounker and Dr. Charleton concerning Stoneheng, they told his Majestie, what they had heard me say concerning Aubury, sc. that it did as much excell Stoneheng as a Cathedral does a Parish Church. His Majestie admired that none of our Chorographers had taken notice of it: and commanded Dr. Charlton to bring me to him the next morning.
I brought with me a draught of it donne by memorie only: but well enough resembling it, with which his Majestie was pleased: gave me his hand to kisse, and commanded me to waite on him at Marleborough when he went to Bath with the Queen about a fortnight after, which I did: and the next day, when the court were on their journey, his Majestie left the Queen and diverted to Aubury, where I showed him that stupendous Antiquity, with the view whereof He and his Royal Highness the Duke of Yorke were very well pleased.
His Majestie then commanded me to write a Description of it, and present it to him, and the Duke of Yorke commanded me to give an account of the old Camps and Barrows on the Plaines. As his Majestie departed from Aubury to overtake the Queen he cast his eie on Silbury-hill about a mile off: which he had the curiosity to see, and walkt up to the top of it, with the Duke of Yorke; Dr. Charlton and I attending them...
Quoted in ‘Wiltshire: the topographical collections of John Aubrey,’ JE Jackson 1862. This also has Aubrey’s plans of the circle, and a discussion of these by Jackson.