By Lt.-Col. W. HaivUy, F.S.A. 619 



Four secondary interments were met with whilst the heading 

 was in progress — three of them in urns which might have heen 

 8 or 9 inches high ; they were of poor, brown, unornamented ware, 

 badly-baked, containing only cremated bones, and as they were 

 little more than a foot below the surface, pressure, grass roots, and 

 frost had quite destroyed them. 



About 6 \ feet from the top a mass of wood ash was come upon, 

 which continued to increase in depth and extent until there was 

 nothing but the substance — tons of it. Amidst the ash, remains 

 of charred vertical posts were met with, also many similar pieces 

 lying horizontally and otherwise, most of which were of oak, others 

 of ash. These became more numerous as we approached the 

 bottom. Here an interment was met with and evidence that a 

 cremation had been carried out very elaborately. Stakes had been 

 erected on the solid chalk to form a rectangular space which seemed 

 to have contained logs of timber laid lengthways. The uprights 

 were charred down to where they entered the chalk, and their 

 continuations had become brown dust in holes about a foot deep 

 and 3 feet or more in diameter. Portions of an urn with a dotted 

 vandyke pattern were present with the cremated remains of a 

 human being, but all had been subjected to such tremendous heat 

 that very little remained, and no implement or object of any sort 

 occurred with them. 



The height of the burnt matter above the chalk was about 7 feet, 

 and I think that much of its upper portion had been burnt turf, to 

 judge by its red earthy appearance. 



An enormous amount of wood must have been burnt for a con- 

 siderable length of time to account for such a mass; for consider 

 how little wood ash comes from a big bonfire, and into what a thin 

 layer it compresses after rain and settling down. Taking into con- 

 sideration in this instance the great length of time it has had to 

 consolidate, and the pressure from above, everything points to a 

 fire having been kept up for a very long time. These remains 

 occurred rather to the south-east of the centre of the barrow, and 

 I did not continue the excavation any further : the ash collapsed 

 and buried a man nearly to his shoulders, and as I had to be absent 



