34 NOTES ON A TUMULUS 
l.—WNotes on a Tumulus and its contents, at Grundstone Law, 
Northumberland. By the Rev. Wu. Greenwe.., M.A., and 
D. Emsueton, M.D. 
Any discovery, however trifling, which throws light upon the 
ancient tribes, who occupied our country before historic times, is 
of deep interest; and among such data none are more valuable 
than those which elucidate the sepulchral, and therefore reli- 
gious, customs of those people. To record such discoveries comes 
quite within the range of our Society, more especially as these 
remains are daily, under the progress of cultivation, being de- 
stroyed, in most cases without any notice of the circumstances 
connected with them being recorded. The object of this paper 
is to give an account of the opening of a sepulchral tumulus, at 
a place called Grundstone Law, in the parish of St. John Lee, 
in the county of Northumberland, which was examined June 14, 
1862. 
Grundstone Law, which probably takes its name from some 
large stone or stones, fixed in the earth and rising above the sur- 
face, is situated about three miles north of the Roman Wall, and 
one mile and a half east of Watling Street. On the top of a 
hill, which slopes rapidly to the north and east, occurs one of 
those fortified places which are so common in this district, and 
which were probably the strongholds of the British tribes, This 
camp is surrounded by a mound and ditch, and is circular in 
form. On the south side of it, within a few yards distance from 
the mound, is situated the tumulus, of which this paper gives an 
account. It is circular, about forty feet in diameter and four 
feet in height. It has been originally surrounded, at the base, by 
a circle of large whin boulders, so many of which are scattered 
over the neighbouring district. These stones are now, with the 
exception of two of them, removed from their first position, and 
are lying, some at a little distance from the tumulus down the 
slope of the hill, whilst others have been used to form the wall 
of the field in which the camp occurs. It may here be noticed 
that the tumulus had been opened some years ago by Mr. Coul- 
son, the intelligent tenant of the farm, in support of a theory, 
