442 DURHAM. 



not very far from this burial-place, a barrow was removed several 

 years ago, when I believe some urns were met with ; and three 

 barrows in the same neighbourhood still remain unopened. This 

 district appears to have produced more burials and burial-places of 

 pre-Roman times than any other part of the county of Durham ; 

 and indeed if all the county had been equally prolific of such 

 remains, the observation I have made at the commencement of this 

 account would not have been called for. 



I possess a fragment of a cinerary urn from near Trimdon 

 Grange ; and I have information of the discovery of a skeleton 

 in a cist under a large barrow at Bradley Hall in the parish of 

 Eyton. Closely adjoining the churchyard of Ryton another large 

 barrow still remains unopened. A short cist also was found near 

 Sherburn. 



PARISH OF SOUTH SHIELDS. Ord. Map. cv. S.E. 



CCXV. The only burial-mound I have had an opportunity of 

 personally examining was at the Trow Rocks near Westoe, where 

 a barrow was placed almost on the edge of the magnesian limestone 

 cliff overhanging the sea, about a mile south of the river Tyne. 

 It was 30 ft. in diameter, 3 ft. high, and made of earth with some 

 stones intermixed. At the centre was a cist, consisting of six 

 stones set on edge, two on each side an'd one at each end, with two 

 cover-stones ; some thin pieces of stone were set on the side stones 

 to make the top level and to support the covers. The cist lay 

 north-north-west and south-south-east, and was 4 ft. long, 2 ft. 

 wide, and 1 ft. 10 in. deep, sunk into the clay which there overlies 

 the limestone, the covers being on the level of the natural surface. 

 In it was a skeleton, apparently of a man, very much decayed, laid 

 on the right side, with the head to S.E. ; in front of the face was 

 a flint knife ; there were also, as indeed is almost always found to 

 be the case, some pieces of charcoal in the cist. The knife, which 

 is in form much like fig. 163, has been made from an outside flake, 

 some of the crust of the original flint nodule being still left 

 along the middle part of the convex face ; it has been carefully 

 chipped along both edges, but not at the rounded end opposite to 

 the bulb of percussion. It is 2| in. long and 1 J in. wide. 



