A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE 



EARLY BURIAL MOUNDS, OR LOWS 



These burial mounds occur in every part of this county, but more 

 frequently than elsewhere on the northern moors, and generally, but not 

 always, at high levels. Their sizes and shapes vary. Excepting the explora- 

 tion carried out by Thomas W. Bateman and his assistant Samuel Car- 

 rington very little has been done in that direction. 1 



The prolific results of the diggings of the above-named explorers have 

 found a place in the public museum of the town of Sheffield. 



The deposits in the Sheffield Museum represent nearly the whole of 

 what has resulted from the opening out of the ancient burial mounds of the 

 county. It is remarkable that the northern moorlands, the highest parts of 

 the county, should be crowded with these memorials of the pre-historic dead, 

 emphasizing their doings on earth and signifying their faith in a future. 

 Looking at the number of them, localized so thickly though spread over 

 centuries, it would almost appear that the heights of the hills were specially 

 chosen as places of sepulture by those living far and near. 



1 Thomas W. Bateman was well known to fame, but Samuel Carrington, the village schoolmaster of 

 Wctton, a moorland parish wherein he opened very many burial mounds, has scarcely ever been heard of, but 

 he was truly a man of science, well versed in botany, geology and archaeology. After a life of extraordinary 

 usefulness was ended he was buried in the churchyard of Wetton, and under the auspices of Sir Thomas 

 Wardle, the members of the North Staffordshire Field Cub erected a fitting memorial over the place of his 

 burial from the design of Mr. G. G. Scott, jun. 



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