OF THE BRITISH PEB.IOD AT WAltKSHAUGH. 153 



law gatherings and Druid ceremonies, ) will well repay a visit, 

 and it is in the neighbourhood of British forts on the Gunnar 

 Crags and Pity-me Hill.* 



It must he confessed, that in the matter of barrow-diggings, 

 the ploughman in this district has been more favoured by fortune 

 than the antiquary. Though several interesting tumuli have 

 been accidentally discovered in this valley, even within the last 

 few years, no careful examination of them seems to have been 

 attempted, or, at least, no record of it remains. Solitary burials 

 of the pre-historic or Bomano-British period have been found in 

 drainage at Carry House, on an escarpment near the "Warksburn 

 Bridge, where it falls into the North Tyne, and in a low-lying 

 site by the river at Smalesmouth, near Falstone. In the first 

 case an urn, having the ashes of cremation within it, was taken 

 out of a cist or stone-lined grave, strangely enough, placed almost 

 in the centre of a British fort. The urn is lost, having been at 

 once broken to pieces by the finders when disappointed in their 

 expectations of a concealed hoard. In the second instance an 

 ornament of black bog oak, perforated with five holes, as if used 

 in securing the proper adjustment of the lady's attire who was 

 buried there, in primeval days, was found within the cist. And 

 in the last example, the covering-slab of the cist attracted the 

 attention of the road-makers, who were in want of material for 

 breaking up, when the grave itself was uncovered. The urn, of 

 the so-called " drinking- cup" type, was in excellent condition, 

 from the dryness of the site by the way-side, and though it stood 

 nearly twelve months in a neighbouring cottage, at Greystead, I 

 found it in good preservation. It is now in Mr. Green well's 



* The resemblance between the mysterious concentric circles incised on the rocks of 

 Northumberland, and the configuration of these ancient earth-works, was pointed out by 

 Mr. Greenwell, who has the honour to have first brought the subject of these most intei-est- 

 ing rock-symbols before the public, in a paper read at the Newcastle meeting of the Archaeo- 

 logical Institute, in 1852. The great central mound represents the hollowed cup of these 

 symbolical figures, around which are similar concentric lines, in this case, the surrounding 

 ditches and rampart. From the centre also a projection, as it were, of the diameter passes 

 through and beyond the encircling lines. The hollow way of the Money-Hill fort runs for a 

 distance of one hundred and twenty feet from the circular fosse, and answers to the duct or 

 channel which leads out from the central cup of the rock inscriptions. 



