210 The New Forest : its History and its Scenery. 



measured two feet and a half in height, twelve yards in length, 

 and seven in breadth. This also I opened, hut failed to find 

 even any remains of charcoal, and, from the easy-moving nature 

 of the soil, am inclined to suspect that it was modern, and 

 raised for some other purpose than that of burial. On the 

 east side was a depression filled with water, from whence the 

 soil was taken. 



The most remarkable barrow, if it can be so called, in this 

 part of the Forest, is at Black Bar, at the extreme west end 

 of Lin wood, measuring nearly four hundred yards in circum- 

 ference, and rising to the height of forty feet or more. It is 

 evidently in part factitious, for upon sinking a pit ten feet 

 deep we reached charcoal mixed with Roman pottery, but not 

 of a sepulchral character. 



In its general appearance the mound is not unlike the 

 famous Barney Barn's Hill, in Dibden Bottom, and close to 

 it rises another, known as the Fir Pound, not much inferior 

 in size. I made other openings on the top and sides, but 

 discovered nothing further. To excavate it thoroughly would 

 require an enormous time, and would in all probability not 

 repay the labour. It looks, however, by the depressions on the 

 summit, as if it had once been the site of Keltic dwellings. 

 And this is in some measure corroborated by a small mound 

 close to it, where, as if apparently left or thrown away, we 

 found placed in a hole a small quantity of extremely coarse 

 pottery the coarsest and thickest which I have ever seen. 

 Again, too, in a field close by, known as Blackheath Meadow, 

 we everywhere met traces of Romano-British w r are, very similar 

 in shape and texture to that in Sloden, described in the next 

 chapter. 



The whole district just round here is most interesting. 



