4 INTRODUCTION. 



The evidence afforded by those on the moorland to the north 

 of the river Derwent, and which are situated at a distance of but a 

 few miles from the chalk range of the wolds, tends likewise to show 

 the correctness of this description. 



In Wiltshire, as also, though not so commonly, in other dis- 

 tricts of England, different forms are met with. One large 

 series has had the name of bell-barrow given to it ; but it is difficult 

 to separate it from the conical-shaped mound, except that it has a 

 ditch round the base. What Sir Richard Colt Hoare calls Druid 

 barrows, consisting of one or more very small mounds having a cir- 

 cular bank surrounding them at some distance, do not occur upon 

 the wolds, though it is possible that such may at one time have 

 existed, and have been entirely destroyed by cultivation ; at the 

 same time, as they have not been met with on the moors to the 

 north of the Derwent, it is more probable that they were always 

 absent on the wolds. Nor do the twin barrows of Sir R. Colt 

 Hoare, or a group of three mounds, surrounded by a ditch, which 

 are found, though rarely, in Wiltshire, find any representatives on 

 the wolds. 



It is probable that many of the wold barrows had originally an 

 encircling mound or ditch, or both, at the base ; but if such was 

 the case, the process of agriculture has long since destroyed all 

 trace of them. Some such method of enclosure is very common in 

 connection with sepulchral places throughout the whole of Britain. 

 It is found in the shape of circles of stone, where that material is 

 abundant ; and in mounds of earth or ditches, where no suitable 

 stone exists. The circles are placed in some cases immediately 

 round the base of the barrow, and in others at some little distance 

 from it 1 . Several barrows upon Wykeham Moor, in the North 

 Biding of Yorkshire, and on Riccal and Skip with commons, in the 

 East Riding, have each a ditch round the base. The downs of 

 Wiltshire present numerous instances of encircling mounds ; and 

 the greater number of the Cornish barrows are enclosed by rings of 

 stone. This frequent characteristic makes it probable that the 

 wold barrows were, many of them, originally surrounded by a 

 similar enclosure. 



Barrows differ very considerably in size, though not perhaps 

 so much on the wolds as in other districts : those of the wolds 



1 In Homeric times the custom appears to have been to first mark out the site of 

 the tomb (fffjpa) in somewhat of a circular form, or, as Mr. Paley thinks, in an oval, 

 and then to place stones round the outline. See paper by F. A. Paley, M.A., on 

 Homeric Tumuli, in Trans, of Cambridge Phil. Soc. vol. xi. pt. 2. 



