142 StoneJienge and its Barrows. 



On the Baerows ^ surrounding Stonehenge. 



To the sanctity attaching to Stonehenge, the numerous and im- 

 portant "monumental hillocks" on the adjoining plain bear testimony, 

 but no one who looked carefully at them, could, for a moment, en- 

 tertain the idea that these were the graves of slaughtered heroes 

 whom survivors had " buried darkly at the dead of night/' They 

 carry with them unmistakeable indications of having been leisurely 

 and carefully made by a people who were living in peace and safety 

 upon and around the neighbouring down. From the great size of 

 many of them and their commanding positions on the more elevated 

 portions of the plain, they are very striking objects, and greatly 

 enhance the interest awakened by the stone circles, and their sacred 

 precincts. 



Leland describes those near Stonehenge as "monticuli illi ex 

 egesta terra conglobati ; " ^ and Camden, writing of Wiltshire, says: 

 " Many such artificial hills both round and pointed are to be seen in 

 these parts, and are called burrowes or barrowes, probably thrown 

 up in memory of soldiers slain thereabouts. Bones are found in 

 them." 



From the chapter on barrows in the " Monumenta Britanuica " 

 of Aubrey, part ii., and which has for its motto the following from 

 Seneca, de Consolatione ad Polyb : " Quae per constructionem 

 lapidum,et marmoreas moles, aut ierrenos tumulos in magnam eductos 

 altitudinem constant, non propagabant longam diem, quippe et ipsse 

 intereunt," the writer has extracted the following notices of barrows 

 in the neighbourhood of Stonehenge : " In the Farme of West 

 Amesbury (within which is that famous Antiquity of Stoneheng) is 

 a place called the King's Graves (which is now the Sheep-penning of 

 West Amesbury) where doe appeare five small Barrows, or Tumuli, 



1 Called " Lowes," in Derbyshire ; " Howes," in Yorkshire. " The raising 

 of mounds of earth or stone over the remains of the dead, is a practice," says 

 Mr. Akerman, " which may be traced in all countries to the remotest times." 

 Dr. Wilson adds that " their origin is to be sought for in the little heap of 

 earth displaced by interment, which still to thousands sufBces as the most 

 touching memorial of the dead." 



2 Comment de Script. Britann. De Ambrosio Merlino Cambro, 1709, p. 44. 



