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The Lanhill Long Barrow, Wiltshire, England: An Essay in Reconstruction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

Extract

The destruction of barrows and other monuments of antiquity has become an everyday occurrence. In earlier centuries many things survived, as in Ireland in more recent times, by reason of public superstition or veneration, in which the invocation of the fairies and the little people has played a lively part. It is astonishing how much survived the ages of ignorance. There is irony in the situation. For the main onslaught of destruction, it must be confessed, begins in the self-styled age of culture and enlightenment—from the 17th century to the present day—and of this the greatest slaughter is clearly attributable to our own 20th century.

The Lanhill Long Barrow, once included among the most important antiquities in Wiltshire, has suffered a typical spoliation. When John Aubrey first described and drew the tomb in the mid-17th century, it must have been nearly complete, save for a certain amount of natural weathering. He wrote that the tenant farmer of his day ‘thought to have digged down this hill for the earth to lay on other land’; but he recorded only three small areas of disturbance marked ‘a’ on his original sketch.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1966

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References

page 75 note 1 Aubrey, Monumenta Britannica, fol. 57b, 58, 60.

page 75 note 2 Now in the Bodleian.

page 75 note 3 Thurnam, , Wilts. Arch. Mag., III, no. vii, 68Google Scholar.

page 76 note 1 Mr H. Morrison of Colerne sprayed the remaining weeds. A team of volunteers from Yatesbury R.A.F. Station, led by Ft./Sgt. M. Dacre, spent many hours replacing the scattered rubble. To both we offer our grateful thanks. On this occasion the Wilts. Arch. Society was represented by the writer, who also worked in close collaboration with the Ministry of Works.

page 76 note 2 Passmore, , PPS, 1938 (Jan.–July), 122–3Google Scholar.

page 76 note 3 Powell, Anthony, John Aubrey and his Friends, 114Google Scholar, described him as ‘of middle stature’.

page 76 note 4 We are greatly indebted to Mr A. J. Sellar, of Lanhill Farm, for permission to dig, the use of an electric fence, and cordial co-operation at all stages of the work. We also have to thank the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments and the Wilts. Arch. Society for encouragement and help. To Dr A. J. Cain, Dr A. S. Clarke, and Mr W. E. V. Young, curator of Avebury Museum, sincere acknowledgments are due for valuable specialist reports; also to Mr John Tucker for a photographic record undertaken at short notice. Finally we must thank those volunteers and friends who—in most trying conditions—assisted by digging.

page 77 note 1 We understand from an unpublished letter (dated 17/6/37) of the late A. D. Passmore that the stones were removed in 1909 without the knowledge or permission of Mr and Mrs Cunnington.

page 78 note 1 Compare with the false portals at Belas Knap, Rodmarton, West Tump, Brimpsfield, and others.

page 78 note 2 A calcareous deposit was firmly attached to one edge of the quern and also to the interior broken surface, which otherwise was sharp and unworn. It will be recalled that Dr Thurnam remarked on the ‘white calcareous efflorescence’ seen by him, in 1855, encrusted on the drystone walling ‘exterior’ to his ‘cist’; i.e. a foot or two from the spot where the quern was found. The identification as sarsen is by Dr J. W. Cowie, C.B.A., Implement Petrology, Quern Enquiry, Serial No. 138.

page 78 note 3 All finds are deposited in Devizes Museum.

page 80 note 1 Cf. Liddell, D. M., Antiquity, III, no. 11, Sept. 1929, 283–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The three impressions from the West Kennet Long Barrow are appreciably larger, 5.5 to 6.5 millimetres in width, and must indicate bones of larger birds or bones of small mammals. We are grateful to the curators of the Avebury and Devizes Museums for facilities to study.

page 80 note 2 For accounts of excavations, see, for 1855, Thurnam, , Wilts. Arch. Mag., III, no. 7, 6786Google Scholar; for 1909, see Cunnington, , Wilts. Arch. Mag., XXXVI, no. CXII, 300–10Google Scholar; and for 1936, see Keiller, and Piggott, , PPS, 1938 (Jan.–July), 122–50Google Scholar.

page 80 note 3 Piggott, , The Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles, 1954, 131Google Scholar.

page 80 note 4 Cf. Uley (25 feet), Rodmarton (25 + feet), Notgrove (31 feet), etc. which are exceptional.

page 80 note 5 Daniel, G. E., The Prehistoric Chamber Tombs of England and Wales, 1950, 72 and 159Google Scholar.

page 80 note 6 This should now be checked by re-excavation. Natural bedded rock may be ruled out. Related Cotswold cairns with internal walls have been noted at Lugbury (Lanhill's closest neighbour), Uley, and Randwick.

page 81 note 1 It is probable that some of the bones found by Thurnham were related to those found in 1963. They cannot now be traced.

page 82 note 1 Grimes, W. F., PPS, V, 1939, Part 1, 119–40Google Scholar, for reports on extra-revetment material at Ty-isaf, Brecknockshire.

page 82 note 2 Ibid., Excavations on Defence Sites, 1939–45, HMSO 1960, 9, 47 ff.