By Mrs. M. E. Cunnington. 385 



mentions a fragment of a large urn and a piece of bronze knife 

 dagger 1 as having been found, these no doubt belonging to secondary 

 interments. O.M. 28 SW. ; A. W. II. Map of Calne and Swindon 

 Station ; Stukeley's Abury, 46 ; Smith p. 100, VII. F. v. a ; Proc. 

 Arch. Inst. Salisbury, 109 (Mere wether). 



Avebury. 22. West Kennet Long Barrow. Length according to Hoar e 

 344ft., to Thurnam 335ft. ; E. and W. Chambered. This barrow 

 was partially opened by Thurnam in 1859. He found one large 

 chamber formed of six upright sarsen stones, covered by three other 

 large sarsens ; it measured 8ft. by 9ft., and 8ft. in clear height ; the 

 spaces between the large stones were filled in by a dry walling of 

 stones of a calcareous grit, the nearest quarries of which would be 

 about seven miles away near Calne. A similarly constructed gallery 

 about 15ft. in length, led from the chamber to the eastern edge of 

 the mound. Among the rubble with which the chamber was filled 

 were the remains of six skeletons, which seem to have been in a sit- 

 ting or crouching position ; two of the skulls had been cleft before 

 burial, probably before death. Bones of various animals, numerous 

 flakes and worked flints, including one piece ground, several large 

 mullers of flint and sarsen, part of a bone pin, and a hand-made bead 

 of Kimmeridge shale were found. There was also a considerable 

 quantity of pottery all in fragments, " in three of the four angles 

 of the chamber there was a pile of such evidently deposited in a 

 fragmentary state, there being scarcely more than two or three 

 portions of the same vessel." This pottery consists of fragments of 

 " drinking cup " type, and of other vessels of distinctive decoration, 

 possibly round-bottomed, and having a hollow moulding beneath the 

 rim. 1 



Thurnam thought the chamber had been previously disturbed, possibly 

 during the Roman period. The barrow seems to have had originally 

 a containing wall built of upright sarsens with the spaces between 

 filled in with a dry walling of oolitic stones. (For a similar walling 

 see " Adam's Grave," under Alton Priors.) 



As to its present condition the chamber and gallery appear to be in a 

 complete state of ruin, the stones lying about promiscuously. For 

 the rest, to quote Thurnam, " Tenants in the present century (the 

 19th) have stripped it of its verdant turf, 2 cut a waggon-road through 

 its centre, and dug for flints and chalk rubble in its sides, by which 

 its form and proportions have been much injured." O.M. 28 SW. ; 

 A. W. II. 96 ; Arch, xxxviii. 405 ; xlii. 203, 211 ; Cr. Brit. PI. 50; 

 W.A.M. x. 130 ; Smith p. 154, XL G. vi. b. ; Devizes Museum Cat. 

 II. 23. 



1 See " The Development of Neolithic Pottery," by Mr. R. A. Smith, 

 Arch. lxii. 340. 



3 The result of this is the rank growth of weeds and grass that now cover 

 the mound. 



