MARCH 



The Barrow in the Wood 



WE have begun to open the round barrow 

 near the highest point of the wooded 

 hill. This is one of several barrows in 

 the wood missed by the Ordnance Survey. Three 

 or four of these barrows are hidden by the hazels 

 and birch, and there is no sign that this, the smallest 

 of them, has ever been touched by spade and pick 

 since it was piled up, thousands of years ago maybe. 

 The top is about five feet above the level of the 

 surrounding ground. This, for a round barrow, is 

 low, but it must have been worn away by time and 

 weather, and, perhaps, by farming operations cen- 

 turies ago. We are cutting a trench through the 

 middle of the barrow from north-west to south-east, 

 excavating the soil about five feet deep. 



So far as we have worked, spade and pick have 

 brought to the surface only a fairly stiff red clay, 

 mixed with flints. This proves that the mound was 

 piled by man, for the subsoil of clay around is 

 not nearly so deep we should have been in the 

 chalk at three feet anywhere about the mound. 

 Just beneath the surface of a larger barrow two miles 

 away we have found what I think are arrow and spear 



43 



