448 GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 



as to its primary use. It was 36 ft. in diameter and about 2 ft. 

 high, but it had lost much of its upper portion from having served 

 as a quarry from which to build a neighbouring wall ; and the 

 same may be said of the three barrows next to be described. The 

 mound was most carefully made with large flat stones laid in a 

 sloping position, and inclining towards the centre up to a point 

 3J ft. outside the walls of the chamber presently to be described. 

 The stones then became much smaller, and were placed at the back 

 of the walls of the chamber without any especial order being 

 observed. Upon the natural surface of the ground, throughout the 

 whole area of the mound, charcoal was found scattered in abundance. 

 At the centre was a circular chamber, carefully constructed of thin 

 oolitic slabs, laid without any mortar or clay between them, and 

 forming an excellent example of dry- walling. Though the general 

 form of the chamber was circular, it consisted of six faces of straight 

 wall, which, with the space where the entrance occurs, made it, 

 strictly speaking, heptagonal. The chamber was sunk 2 ft. 8 in. 

 into the ground, and the height to where the roof had commenced 

 to narrow was 3 ft. 10 in. The roof had been constructed by laying 

 large flagstones gradually projecting inwards until they joined at 

 the centre, forming what has been called a bee-hive roof. This 

 mode of constructing a roof is by no means an uncommon one 

 both in early habitations and burial-places, and was necessitated 

 partly by want of sufficiently large slabs to cover over a space when 

 they had to be laid across from side to side, and partly by the 

 desire to obtain increased height without raising the walls. The 

 bottom was partly flagged at the south-west side,, the remaining 

 portion being formed by the natural rock ; this flagging being 

 probably due to the irregularity of the level at that part of the 

 bottom rather than to any intentional design. The chamber was 

 5 ft. 8 in. wide, and had a passage leading into it on the north- 

 west side ; the whole length of the passage, with the width of the 

 chamber added to it, was 19 ft. 5 in. The passage was 2f ft. wide 

 at its entrance into the chamber, and narrowed to 2f ft. at the 

 opposite end. It sloped gradually, from a depth of 2 ft. 8 in. at 

 its entrance into the chamber, up to the original level of the 

 ground. On the north side the passage was walled in the same 

 manner as the chamber, but on the south the rock into which it 

 was cut formed the side. On the north side of the chamber the 

 stones were reddened by the action of fire, but not to any great 

 extent, and on that part of the floor were remains of charcoal. 



