Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ixvi. (1922), No. 4 5 



moors, observed layers of white sand used in making the 

 mound, which he considered was not obtainable within 

 seven miles of the site of the barrows, and the greater part 

 of another barrow was whinstone from a dyke three miles 

 distant." (8, xxi-ii.) 



Canon Greenwell remarks on a Barrow in Rudstone Parish 

 in the East Riding : — 



'' The sandstone slabs, some of which showed by their 

 peculiarly weathered surface that they had been taken from 

 the sea-beach, could not have been obtained nearer than 

 Filey Brigg, which is about twelve miles distant from the 

 barrow. The transportation of these thence must have been 

 a work of time and labour, especially to people who could 

 have possessed nothing but the simplest appliances for 

 effecting the carriage of weighty objects." 



Canon Greenwell goes on to say that : — 



''.... it seems strange in this case, where a deep grave 

 had been sunk into the chalk, that it should have been 

 considered necessary to undertake all the additional toil of 

 constructing cists within the grave, when such constructions 

 seemed in no w^ay necessary for the protection of the interred 

 bodies. I have seen in limestone districts something which 

 may be considered more or less analogous ; namely, that a 

 hollow had been first made in the limestone rock, and then 

 lined with slabs of sandstone " (4, 242-3). 



These quotations demonstrate that the early users of stone 

 in this country were not dependant upon local supplies, but 

 were ready to transport large slabs over several miles of 

 country. As Canon Greenwell says, no plausible reason can 

 be assigned for the practice on the score of utility. It seems 

 that they wished to use that particular sort of stone, and 

 proceeded so to do regardless of trouble. We have high 

 authority for concluding that some of the stones of Stonehenge 

 itself, the blue stones, came from a great distance, perhaps 

 from Brittany. That goes to show that the question of local 

 supplies of stone really played but little part in the calcula- 

 tions of the early users of stone in this country. In other 

 countries men have taken the trouble to transport stones, often 

 of vast size, to places where they needed them. This is so, 

 for instance in Brittany, where stones have been carried for 

 twenty miles from a quarrv in order to form part of a dolmen. 



