85 
Alotes on MBarvotu-diggings in the Parish of 
Collinghourne. Ducis. 
By the Rev. W. C. Lvxis. 
GROUP of thirteen barrows may be seen on the western 
side of the turnpike road leading from the parish of 
Collingbourne Ducis to North Tidworth. Two of them in a plan- 
tation are of large size, and occupy a central position of the 
group. The remaining eleven are of various dimensions, and three 
or four are only a few inches in elevation, and require a practised 
eye fo discover them. They form an interesting collection of 
mounds, because exclusive of their contents, they present a some- 
what irregular line running nearly east and west, and exhibit a 
yariety of forms which may perhaps assist us in elucidating what 
has always been a difficult problem,—viz. the mode of their con- 
struction. 
It is remarkable, and I venture to add very fortunate, that these 
mounds escaped the scrutiny of Sir Richard Colt Hoare, who, with 
_ the most praiseworthy aim, unwittingly did as much as any man 
® could to prevent archeologists from knowing, to the full extent, 
what his vast researches and extensive experience should have 
taught them respecting Wiltshire Barrows, and to mislead barrow 
diggers of a later day. What a mass of most deeply interesting 
information relating to the construction of Barrows, and how many 
ticles of antiquity of great value have been overlooked and lost 
through the mode in which he prosecuted his researches. If he 
had himself handled the spade, or been continually present with 
his labourers, and if he had given more time to the examination _ 
of each barrow, we should not now have to lament the unscientific 
opening of innumerable barrows, and the loss which the history of 
S early human occupation of the County has sustained. An aged 
“shepherd of Salisbury Plain,” now deceased, who himself be- 
ee a 
. 
_ 
