PARISH OF FORD. 403 



may have served at one time to defend the southern against his 

 more northern foe, as in after days it served the purpose of the 

 north against the south. Two other monoliths, one at Yevering 

 and one at Humbleton, both marking the site of events long since 

 forgotten and hidden in the far past, are still in local tradition made 

 to testify to border conflicts in which the Percy and the Douglas 

 fought. Here are the seats (Yevering and Milfield) where the 

 kings of Northumbria dwelt, but at which not a trace remains to 

 mark where the royal houses stood ; and close by flows the Glen, 

 in whose stream the thousands that flocked to his preaching were 

 baptized by Paulinus. The whole country indeed teems with 

 historic, as it does with prehistoric, interest, and every spot is 

 marked as classic ground. Inscribed rocks are abundant, and one, 

 just bej'ond the limits of the parish of Ford, at Rovvtin Lynn, was 

 the first which attracted so much attention as to be the means of 

 bringing those mysterious carvings before the antiquarian world at 

 the meeting of the Archaeological Institute at Newcastle-on-Tyne 

 in 1852. The same markings, engraved upon the under side of 

 stones forming the covers to deposits of burnt bones, have occurred 

 very near to the village of Ford. Numerous interments both of 

 burnt and unburnt bodies, sometimes associated with sepulchral 

 vessels, have been found in barrows, or simply deposited in the 

 ground without any covering mound. In one instance that I am 

 acquainted with a very beautiful and elaborate necklace of jet 

 accompanied the burial, the larger and oblong pieces of which were 

 engraved with patterns characteristic of the finer and most artistic 

 specimens of that class of ornament. 



PARISH OF FORD. Ord. Map. ex. s.w. 



Several of the barrows which had not been previously opened were 

 examined by me, and of these I now proceed to give an account. 



CLXXXIV. The first was upon Etall Moor, and placed on the 

 outcrop of the carboniferous limestone which here forms a ridge. 

 The barrow was 16 ft. in diameter, 2J ft. high, and made of earth 

 with a few intermingled stones. The mound had been partially 

 disturbed at the top, in consequence of having been used by the 

 Ordnance Surveyors as a site for a surveying post ; and to this 

 must be attributed the destruction of a ' drinking cup ' of very 



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