2 Notes on the Opening of a Bronze Age Barroiv at Manton. 



less mysterious Avebiiry Temple and Silbuiy Hill, the cromlechs 

 and the barrows — derelicts stranded from the unfathomed depths 

 of time. 



It is the human element in these relics of the past that make 

 them of such surpassing interest — even of fascination to us; they 

 are the labours of human hands, the creations of human brains, 

 the embodiment of the ideas and of the aspirations, the hopes and 

 the fears of men and women like and yet unlike ourselves — our 

 predecessors in the land, if not actually our ancestors. 



Though less imposing than the greater works, the barrows are 

 almost of greater fascination and of more poignant interest, because 

 ill these we get the most intimate, the most touching, and the 

 most personal and human interest. Paradoxical as it sounds, it is 

 yet true that the burial mounds of the dead have given us almost 

 the only glimpse we have been able to obtain into the manner and 

 conditions of life of the people who built them, and they are the 

 source from whence nearly all the little we know about these people 

 has been gleaned. 



A little over a mile from Marlborough, at Manton, in the parish 

 of Preshute, and about four and a half miles in a straight line from 

 the great temple of Avebury, there lies a barrow beautifully, but 

 not conspicuously, situated about midway down the hillside that 

 slopes gently with a southerly aspect to the river Kennet.^ At the 

 opening of this barrow last October (1906) it was the writer's 

 pleasure and privilege to assist. Work was begun on October 1st, 

 1906, and was continued on eight days during the following 

 fortnight, the weather interfering somewhat with its regularity. 

 Never less than two, and sometimes three, four, and five 

 men were employed. No digging was allowed to be done unless 

 we ourselves were present, every spadeful was looked over 

 as it was thrown out, and when the interment was reached we 

 cleared the earth and removed all the relics with our own hands. 

 To sift all the material of the barrow would have been a gigantic task, 

 but that in the immediate vicinity of the finds was carefully sifted. 



' Marked on Rev. A. C. Smith's Map, Section XV. L. VI. a, ibid, page 204. 

 Not marked in latest Ordnance Survey Map but is on the earlier ones. 



