wysefool

youtube.com/watch?v=xh1DES4zmjg

Video of GPS scale model of White Horse Hill being constructed.

An Early Iron Age settlement site covering 1000 sq m
Excavated in the 1980’s with usual pottery, bone and some flint finds.

Aldbourne Four Barrows. – Sugar hill, Aldbourne near Hungerford.
Bronze age barrow cemetary 2500 – 1500 BC.

The contents of these Barrows are now in the British Museum. Three of the four barrows are of the Wessex bell type of barrow these are eight to ten feet high. The fourth is an ordinary bowl shaped mound, also ten feet high. They were excavated by W. Greenwell near the end of the 19th century. Two of the bell barrows contained cremations and the third a skeleton. Other finds included amber, beads, flint arrowheads, fragments of greenstone axe and a grooved dagger. The bowl barrow had a cremation in a burial cist covered with four sarsen stones. The famous Aldbourne barrow is at the foot of this hill in the field by the A419 just north of the wood. It is a bowl about 100 feet across by six feet high. The mound provided the British Museum with its Aldbourne cup, an incense cup with lid, and two bronze awls, a bronze dagger and beads of faience, amber, fossils and shale.

from:

wiltshire-web.co.uk/history/barrows.htm

During 1981 and 1982 an area of the East ditch was dug. Radiocarbon dates from material from the lower levels of the ditch indicated a date of 2900BC.

Mesolithic remains were also found.

‘E T Leeds investigated Neolithic, Bronze Age and Anglo-Saxon sites near the cursus on the second terrace, and the Abingdon Society has excavated a Neolithic henge and bronze age remains to the north of the Cursus.‘

from ‘Excavations on the Cursus at Drayton, Oxon‘
R Ainslie & J Wallis, Oxoniensia LII

Lowbury Hill: An artificial grove?

‘Lowbury Hill in Oxfordshire, England, has long been regarded as the site of a probable Romano-British temple. The summit of the hill is occupied by several earthworks, including a rectangular enclosure and a round barrow. The site was excavated in 1913-14, when the bank and interior were investigated.

Further work has recently been carried out, including a geophysical survey and a limited excavation programme. One of the most interesting features discovered in this new investigation is the presence of a series of shallow, irregular scoops in the chalk, filled with dark, loamy soil, which have been interpreted as tree holes. These seem to have formed part of the primary demarcation of the sacred enclosure, and appear to represent deliberately planted trees.

This activity perhaps took place in the first century AD. The inference is that the first construction was replaced in the second century AD by an enclosing wall: inside there was probably a simple temple building; associated with it were a group of spears (including a deliberately bent one), coins and other finds indicative of sacred use.

But the first phase may have comprised a deliberately planted holy grove. One further discovery of possible relevance is the burial of a woman whose face had been mutilated, though it is uncertain to which phase this body belongs.‘

Miranda J Green
1997

Maidenhead Thicket, Robin Hood’s Arbour.

‘Mrs M A Cotton has directed excavations during the summer of 1960 on this sub-rectangular earthwork ...but Mrs Cotton obtained sections across the bank, ditch and counter-scarp bank. Outside and inside the entrance was found a cobbled trackway but no definite evidence for any timber structures. A hut or farmstead probably had existed in the enclosure and burnt down, for several isolated pieces of burnt daub were found to show that the enclosure had been constructed by the Belgae, probably between AD 25-50.‘

source: Berkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol 58 1960

‘In 1947 a silver coin of the Dobunni, type of Mack 384a, was found at the hill fort of Uffington Castle...‘

source: Berkshire Archaeological Journal Vol 58 (1960)

The Celtic tribe inhabiting the hill fort was Atrebates. Was this coin traded, or the spoils of war?

Cashtal yn Ard in Manx-Gaelic means ‘Castle of the Height’.

Source: The Folklore of the Isle of Man, by Margaret Killip.

Tumuli

Gaunt trees, scant shelter
For the grass covered barrow
On wind caressed downland
Overlooking the vale

The ancient chalk highway
A stone’s throw away
Lies vacant, brooding;
Acknowledges whispers, inaudible echoes
Vibrations from invisible feet

Weathered sarsen monoliths
Stand to attention
Lichen encrusted overseers
Of a strange uneasy place

The pulse quickens, reactive sensation
An incorporeal feeling;
The heart of past centuries
Although hidden, still beats.

David Pike

Iron age settlement site. Pottery and a skeleton found in the 19th Century. (ref: Smith 1894, Victoria County History, Beds.)

Iron age settlement site. Finds of pottery. (ref: Bradford 1942).

---

‘A small detached hillock, about midway between Tetsworth and Lewknor, some  1½ miles from the foot of the Chiltern escarpment’ – (quote found somewhere on that there ‘Tinternet’)

SP981221 Nearby settlement site at Totternhoe.
Storage pits and hearth. Finds included: high round shouldered jars and a bronze vase-headed pin. Iron age. (ref: Hawkes 1940)

Pits cut into chalk, pottery finds with unique horseshoe decoration. Also, finds of bone, bronze and iron objects. (ref: Richardson & Young 1951)

Settlement site with intercutting pits. Finds of pottery, bone and bronze ring-headed pin. (Head & Piggot 1946)

Bozedown, Whitchurch: Univallate enclosure of 58 acres.

Univallate enclosure of about 4 acres and Heavily ploughed.

Thoughts of the Icknield Way
(downs of Berkshire)

When wild west winds sweep o’er these Downlands free
And sway ripe cornfields ‘neath a changing sky
They lash to dancing ev’ry storm-tossed tree
And shout and sing of ages long gone by -
We walk the Ridge, as did those skin-clad men
Who chipped the flint and worshipped each new day,
The Sun, Deliverer from night’s terrors then,
Ere Roman legions tramped that windy way.

Where now wave toadflax and the scabious blue,
Where Pasque flowers nestle, as the heights begin
Of rounded hills lit with a rainbow hue: -
Once ran the hares before the battle’s din.
Time was, when as the startled larks took wing,
The blowing-stone went sounding far and near,
As Saxon warriors rallied round a King,
Who saved his land, yet held Christ’s Faith more dear.

Men saw his valour on the Field of Fame,
His great forgiving of a captive foe,
To whom, baptised into Christ’s saving Name,
Was granted freedom, and a new life to know.
Men knew his zeal for learning and for law,
Culture and music, love of kith and kin,
But God alone his nightly vigils saw: -
Those prayers in suff’ring that Heaven’s strength could win.

Sister Sylvia
Wantage

notes:
‘Field of Fame’ = Ethandune
‘captive foe’ = Guthrum and the Danish Leaders

‘Madmarston Iron Age hill fort, occupied from 200BC to 50AD., was defended by three banks and a ditch, now much reduced by ploughing.‘

‘A History of Oxfordshire’ by Mary Jessup

Whitehouse is the site of the old Oxford City FC ground (Marlborough Road, Oxford). The club moved ground and the land has since been partially developed.

Aerial photography revealed a gravel site with Middle Iron Age (third to first century BC) settlement overlain by Medieval.

Source: ‘Oxfordshire’ by John Steane

Ridgeway Pageant

All the hills are watching,
Awed and still:
Away below
Retreats the faint-heart Vale.
Above,
An angry, mighty sky
Rears high,
Piled all triumphant to the setting sun -
Lit mad in changing chaos:
Silver backed, then gilded.
Mottle-splashed with crimson...
Darkened depths, part broken,
Upward pierced
By shafts of sunlight questing -
Molten vistas glistening
And portals passioned low
In ranks of terraced fire.
They drift, they fade..
New forms take shape -
With opal half-light intermingle...
Glare reflects a lustre
On the pale, dry headland mass
Of White Horse Hill.
A strange, tense calm -
Impending dusk alight with radiance:
A wild serenity.

In slow, rough accent:
“That ther’ brings some weather, sna...”
A shepherd stays his sheep
Before the blaze.

Roye England

‘About 1810 the ground covering and surrounding the stones was planted with fir trees and beeches, forming a circular plantation called here a folly, hence Wayland’s Folly, a name that did not stick. The planting was after the site had been cleared at the direction of Lord Craven who owned the site, the monument being made considerably more conspicuous . . . In 1859 the firs having died were cut down, leaving the exterior ring of beeches. In 1861 it was referred to as in a very neglected state, covered with elder bushes, briars and nettles and when A L Lewis visited it in 1868 he referred to it as within a plantation the denseness of which made it difficult to trace the surrounding layout of stones.‘

Clive Alfred Spinage
Myths and Mysteries of Wayland Smith

At Rams Hill, on the downs about two miles north of seven barrows, part of the hilltop was at first enclosed by a bank and ditch; but around 1500BC stronger defensive ramparts were put up, with stout palisades on either side of the ditch. Recent excavations suggest that Uffington Castle may have superseded Rams Hill when a much larger and stronger encampment was needed.

Daphne Phillips
Berkshire – A County History

The most important funerary monument remaining is the Lambourn Long Barrow, on the northern boundary of Lambourn parish, and standinga t the head of a shallow valley containing a group of later monuments known as Seven Barrows. The valley is now dry but may once have contained a spring worshipped in ancient times, and which, perhaps, was the reaosn for siting the barrows here. The Long Barrow has been badly damaged by centuries of ploughing and by a track running across one end used by farm vehicles and race horses. The barrow was excavated at least twice, but inexpertly, in the 19th century, and some human remains were removed. Rescue operations in 1964 found no great quantity of artefacts, but some of the potsherds resembled pottery found at the famous Neolithic camp on Windmill Hill, 20 miles away. A mass of sarsen stones disturbed by previous excavators may have formed a central core to the barrow.

Daphne Phillips
Berkshire – a county history

I wish I was on White Horse Hill
At the breaking of my day;
Along the sweet horse gallops I’d run.
And in the stars I’d play.
Where daisies fall, nightingales call
Little owls to play.
Oh I wish I was on White Horse Hill
At the breaking of the day.

Come crows come sheep come chalk hedgerows,
I’d fly the big green hill.
Come nights come snow come stars’ haloes,
I’d follow the greensand trail.
Where daisies fall, nightingales call
Little owls to play.
Oh I wish I was on White Horse Hill
At the breaking of my day.

The horse the pack the moon the track,
All travel the north wind road.

The Thames it flows, the man down he goes
Along his winter road,
Far down his winter road.
Where daisies fall, nightingales call
Little owls to play.
Oh I wish I was on White Horse Hill
At the breaking of my day.

Peter Please

Vesper Vale

June, at evening, on the White Horse Hills!
O, joy is overflowing, hope fulfilled,
For summer lures long days to lavish pride.
Lush her rising cornfields – rich the downs
That trail, deep rounded, far to failing east.
Hedgerows riot thick and countless starred;
Green slopes are swathed with blush of clover pink.
Beneath, past weighing elms, in soundless rest
A village clusters down its ancient street.
Distance silver, amber, stretches over;
Wide the Vale and far the furthest view.

Droop of sundown, musing, dwells the listless
Prospect lightly. Sheltered farms, half hid,
Yet lie outspread, and meadows lonely; woods
Apparelled darkly – straying byways lost
In gathered trees, and low-set fields struck gold
By myriad buttercups. Afloat the plain
Late scented breaths are stirred, and fitful murmurs.
Hint of tedded hay pervades the heights‘
Rare potpourri. The listening air goes filled
With trilling, winged of larks, from all the hills;
In random field light-footed rabbits play
And cattle gaze in deep unthoughtfulness.

Roye England

The Ridgeway Long Distance Footpath was officially opened at Coombe Hill, near Wendover on 27th September, 1973. It runs for 85 miles from Overton Hill in Wiltshire to Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire, crossing the Thames at Goring Gap, and is marked along the way by sturdy oak signposts, low stone plinths and white painted ‘acorn’ waymarks. The trackways it follows were old before the Romans came, having been in continuous use since man first travelled across the face of Britain. Indeed, the Ridgeway is thought to be the oldest prehistoric track in the country.

Excerpt from the introduction of ‘Walks Along the Ridgeway’ by Elizabeth Cull and published in 1975.

Vale of White Horse

The Vale was once a gem:
Far years speak beauty – make us long to know
Their ways – to treasure, prize,
As not the present, Can they be relived?
No, hardly now. And yet
Their joys survive – made yours, within these pages.
Come, let’s seek them. Backward
Glance, and prove
What gracious days then shone.

This book recalls, alive, time past, sublime -
The massing of great elms,
Their shaded fields; deep thatch, men one with nature.
Roam with us these pages...
Find rich lands unspoilt – their paradise
Till now not sung, not known.
The Vale, seen still superb, awaits you here:
Oh, come with hope -

Explore...

-

Roye England

To all those, of every generation,
who made the Vale the gem it once was –
a paradise,
shared and tended by the men who lived there;
who worked it, loved it, and kept it unspoilt:
till modern change struck, and not caring,
betrayed its charm.

Roye England

All Ages Waken

Long thousand years fly lost
Since Alfred gazed the Vale in moods as these -
Ago when wildboar ranged the marshy plain
Ere forest yielded: when, cut hoar, the Horse
Saw Saxon truce with Dane. Yet no more rapt
Hung vesper magic then than pauses now
In beauty hallowed timeless, unbetrayed:
For, God -

All ages waken when there falls
Of evening, spell-bound, so enchanted calm

Roye England

extract from Berkshire by Daphne Phillips

‘...and in the grounds of Heatherwood Hospital at Ascot, where the remaining barrow was formerly one of a group of four. Excavation of the Heatherwood barrow in 1973 dated it to circa 1800BC.‘

‘The ridge on which stands the iron-age hillfort of Tadmarton Camp is tentatively identified as the site of an Anglo-Saxon royal vill and the scene of a battle in 913. Nearby was the original glebeland of Hook Norton parish church, suggesting that the early ecclesiastical centre may also have been on the ridge, not in the village 2+1/2 miles away‘

John Blair

from Oxoniensia vol LI 1986

‘in 1979 an earthwork enclosure known as the Devil’s Churchyard was cleared of trees and undergrowth. The enclosure and associated boundary ditches have since been dated by excavation to the mid to late Iron Age.‘

The site is described in the report as a heart-shaped enclosure of about 1 acre. A recent ash tree plantation has obliterated the NW earthworks.

From the ditch fills were identified bones of cattle, sheep and dog. Worked flint was also found, as was pottery which dated the site to the Iron Age.

‘The name is from that of a curvilinear earthwork upon the hill OE Weala byrig, ‘Briton’s or Welshman’s fort’. In Gough’s Camden it is called Cornhill, which may be the older name...‘

Berkshire place names, G W B Huntingford

‘Discovered about 1850, the NE end of the site is in the wood and crossed by the cart tack. It is c.220ft long, 70ft wide at its E end and here 4+1/2ft high. Parallel side-ditches originally 7ft deep, flank the mound, whose ends are open. Excavation has shown that their contents provided a turf cover with chalk crust to a core of sarsens which constitute the mound. Near the E end a contracted female burial has been found, associated with extra human bones and a necklace or bracelet of polished common dog whelk. Date (C14) circa 3,400 BC.‘

Nicholas Thomas, Guide to Prehistoric England, 1976

The burh or ‘fort’ is that on Blewburton Hill, “now and for some time past under the plough... on the summit an irregular oval of about 408 by 149 yards, that seems to have been enclosed by a ditch and rampart.”

Rev J Wilson D.D. in Transactions Newbury FC 1872)

The Oldest Road, J R L Anderson and Fay Godwin

‘To the north of the punchbowl there is a hillock or tumulus, and beyond the tumulus there is an area of curiously broken ground, like the remains of quarrying on a doll’s house scale, which I think must once have been open-cast flint workings, though they are not markes as such. Where the chalk is exposed there are plenty of flint cores still to be seen, and you can re-create in your imagination a vivid picture of prehistoric men working away with antler picks to get at them.‘

A sharks tooth (a ‘mako’ shark) was found in the bell barrow and reported as possibly having been used as a decoration (i.e. necklace).

(wiltshire archaeological mag, vols 72/73 – 1977/78)

Barry Cunliffe – Wessex to 1000 AD (published 1993)

‘Apart from the dog, which existed in domesticated form in the Mesolithic period, the earliest domesticated animals known from Wessex are cattle and sheep or goat, both of which have been identified at the long barrows of Lambourn (c.4200BC) and Fussel’s Lodge (c.4000BC). Domesticated pigs are first recorded in the pre-enclosure level at Windmill Hill in a context dated to c.3800BC.‘

Wysefool says: Interesting that the date for the animal find (presumably bone) is given as circa 4200BC, an earlier date than I’d previously thought for the ‘Oldest Long Barrow in England’ an older than the ‘Magic’ date of 3415BC. The date of 4200BC was from radiocarbon dating and therefore could be plus/minus a fair few years, but not 800 odd!

extract from ‘Berkshire’ by Harold Peake, concerning the first dig at Waylands:

‘... it was not until 1919 that any scientific exploration of it was undertaken. This exploration was conducted by Mr Reginald Smith and Mr C R Peers, with a number of Berkshire Colleagues, in July 1919 and June 1920. Among the interesting things that they found were two iron currency bars, dating from the Early Iron Age, dug up from the foot of the stone upon which it had been customary to place the groat.

The chamber has always been known to consist of a central passage, with a square chamber on either side and one at the end. The end slab has every appearance of having been a roofing slab that has slipped down behind two side stones at the end of this chamber, but no steps have been taken to ascertain whether the passage continued beyond it. The most interesting discovery made was that the sides of the barrow had been supported by dry walling of large sarsen stones set with a decided ramp. Remains of eight skeletons were found in the chambers, but in a bad state of preservation, while a burial in a crouched position was found just outside on the west. In spite of a careful search no grave furniture was found.‘

from ‘Berkshire’ by Ian Yarrow

‘... the camp is enclosed within a single rampart and ditch, and a walk right round is about one mile in length. A Neolithic axehead and a Bronze Age urn have been found within the camp, indicating that it was in use for some purpose before the Iron Age.‘

from ‘Berkshire’ by Ian Yarrow

‘...Cwichelmeshlaew, once described as “the boast and glory of our downs”, was for long thought to be a burial-place of Cwichelm, a saxon chief, but in 1934 Mr Harold Peake, after a thorough excavation, came to the conclusion that most probably this was not a burial-place at all and had been constructed for some purpose during the early iron age.’ (my italics)

from ‘Berkshire’ by Ian Yarrow

‘A chambered long barrow was discovered in 1935 br Mr L V Grinsell ... who was wandering among the lambourn seven barrows one sunny september day. It may sound amazing that a barrow 220ft long and 50ft wide should have passed unnoticed until 1935. But the thing was not so obvious as it sounds, for one end of it was ploughed up, and a cart-track and a grassy bank ran across the other end. It was, in fact, pretty well hidden, and it took a “barrow detective” like Mr Grinsell to spot it. The sarsen stones which originally formed the passage and chambers lay beneath the cart-track and had become exposed.‘

extract from ‘Berkshire’ by Ian Yarrow

‘...The camp is so obviously Roman with its oyster shells and rectangular shape that it is easy to forget that Bronze and Iron Age things have been unearthed here and that the Roman oyster shells should more properly be grouped with the bottle tops and ice-cream papers left behind by twentieth-century invaders. Lady readers may be interested to know that here at Lowbury the skeleton of a woman, her skull smashed in, was found buried in the foundations of a stone wall.‘

Wysefool says: The last time i went up to Lowbury, there was def some bumps of round barrows there, if they are Bronze Age or Roman, i do not know.

From David Nash Ford – Berkshire History Website (www.berkshirehistory.com)

‘There was a sizable community settled in Compton parish as far back as the bronze Age when banks and ditches were constructed around a settlement which, in the Iron Age, was turned into the hillfort of Perborough Castle. The inhabitants farmed the surrounding area quite intensively and a large number of field systems have been examined on nearby Cow Down.‘

According to L V Grinsell in his book White Horse Hill and surrounding country:

‘Between Uffington Castle and the White Horse is an oblong mound which was opened in 1857 by Mr E Martin ATkins, when forty-six skeletons were found in forty-two graves nearly all of which were placed east/west. Five of the skeletons had small bronze coins placed in their mouths, and these were evidently Roman or Romano-British burials, the coins being placed in the mouths of the deceased, after the well known Roman custom, for the purpose of paying the Charon for ferrying them across the River Styx to the next world. The ages of the people represented by the skeletons varied between 1 and 70 or more, and they were of both sexes. Four of the skeletons were headless. One of them was accompanied by a vase of red ware, probably Roman, which is now in the Roman Room at the British Museum. In the centre of this mound there was a coarse urn with two handle like bosses, filled with burnt bones and arched over with sarsens. This find rather suggests the possibility that the mound may originally have been a round barrow which was later altered in shape to contain the forty-six Roman or Romano-British Skeletons.‘

This round barrow was excavated by Martin-Atkins in 1857 who reported finding 9 skeletons. The 1993 dig found sherds of Bronze Age pottery and, a more recent internment, a book entitled ‘Demonology and Witchcraft’ by Walter Scott and published in 1831. The inside cover was daubed with red ink and inscribed with the words ‘Demon de Uffing’. Some damage to the book was evident, although it was reported that the book was in generally good condition. (the reason for this is given as the chalk soil mix).

---

‘The excavator was confident that the ground around the location of the book’s burial had not been recently disturbed, and therefore a pre-excavation joke by persons unknown was ruled out. In theory the book could have been deposited during the 19th-century excavations, but it is more likely that its burial is related to one of the more recent revivals in the mystical aspects of the White Horse and its surroundings.’ – Alan Hardy

This slight oblong shaped mound was first excavated by Edwin Martin-Atkins (local landowner) in 1857 and 1858 where he found 46 inhumantions and a few cremation burials. The site was re-excavated in 1993 and from the findings it is accepted as orignally a Neolithic burial site.

‘While visiting the Seven Barrows the reader should not fail to see the long barrow north-west of the main group, which was found by the writer in 1935.’ (found by L V Grinsell)

There is good evidence that the banks of Segsbury Castle were originally faced with sarsens. The following quotation is taken from T Hearne’s Letter containing an account of some Antiquities between Windsor and Oxford (1725) -

...Sackborough Castle (by which name they call certain strange works, or an old camp) on the South-East side of Wantage in Berks, about two miles from it. It is in a manner round, tho’ I cannot call it a perfect round. I take it, however, to be Danish. Within the Bank that lies on the Inside of this Camp, or as they vulgarly call it, Castle, they dig vast red stones, being a red flint, some of which a cart will hardly draw. They have dug up a great many loads of them, and with many of them they build. They are placed in the banks of the dike or trench in form of a wall. ... When first I walk’d in those parts, I inquired, where it was they could either dig or meet with such stones? It was answer’d that the like occur’d upon Lambourn Downs. Upon which I concluded, and afterwards found, that they grow upon those downs.

From White Horse Hill and surrounding country, by L V Grinsell