Barrows on the East Side. 



will, at least, be this value to this chapter, that it will put 

 on record facts which otherwise could not be known. 



The barrows lie scattered all over the Forest, and are known 

 to the Foresters by the name of " butts," some of the largest 

 being distinguished by local appellations. As in other parts 

 of England, and as in France, superstition connects them with 

 the fairies ; and so we find on Beaulieu Plain two mounds 

 known as the Pixey's Cave and Laurence's Barrow. 



My own excavations have been entirely confined to the Keltic 

 barrows in the northern part of the Forest.* But we will 



* I may as well add that a little way from where the Bound Oak for- 

 merly stood, near Dibden, and between it and Sandy Hill, lies a small mound, 

 , A thirty yards in circumference, and three feet high in the centre, surrounded 

 by an irregular moat, from whichjthe earth had been taken. This I opened 

 in 1862, driving a broad trench from the east to the centre, and another from 

 the south to the centre, which, as also the west side, we entirely excavated ; 

 digging below the natural soil to the depth of four feet. Nothing, however, 

 was found, though I have no doubt charcoal was somewhere present. 



Beyond this, in Dibden Bottom, rises a large mound, from twenty to 

 thirty feet high, apparently of a sepulchral character, known as Barney 

 Barns Hill. Proceeding, close to Butt's Ash End Lane, and near the Roman, 

 or rather British, road to Leap (see chap, v., p. 56), stand two barrows, the 

 northernmost one hundred and the southernmost eighty yards in circum- 

 ference. Farther away, in Holbury Purlieu, are three more, each with 

 a circle of about seventy yards. To the west of these, in the Forest, as 

 shown in the illustration at page 213, rise four more, the three farthest 

 forming a triangle. Beyond these, again, about three-quarters of a mile 

 distant, near Stoneyford Pond, lie four others, respectively ninety, one 

 hundred, and seventy yards in circumference. To the north rise three 

 more, known as the Nodes; the westernmost about one' hundred yards in 

 circumference ; the other two, which are ovaler and form twin barrows, 

 being one hundred and fifty and one hundred yards. Two more stand on 

 the side of the Beaulieu road to Fawley. All these,, with others on 

 Lymington Common and near Ashurst Lodge, and on the East Fritham 

 Plain, still remain to be explored. For the barrows opened by the Rev. J. 

 Pemberton Bartlett, on Langley Heath, see farther on, page 211. 



197 



