NEOLITHIC OF THE WYLYE VALLEY 1: CORTON LONG BARROW 65 
a 
Profile June 2000 
F . 
January 2001 
Fig. 2 a) Crocker’s sketch of the barrow in 1804 for Colt Hoare from Archaeologia XV, plate xvi, fig. 4, b) barrow profile as 
surveyed 2000, and c) photograph of the barrow looking north across the Wylye Valley. See text for explanation. 
Even at that early date Colt Hoare stated that 
‘the plough has diminished its size on both sides, 
-and at the east end’. Cunnington’s record of its 
dimensions, reiterated by Colt Hoare, is now 
established in the archaeological literature (Ashbee 
1970, 167; Kinnes 1992, 10; VCH 1957, 138; Wilts 
County SMR). However, in 1914, Maud Cunning- 
ton records the barrow as being only 120 ft (c. 36.6 
m) long and attributes the loss of 100 ft in as many 
years to ploughing (Cunnington 1914). It seems 
hard to reconcile an average loss of 1 ft (0.3 m) per 
year for 100 years as a result of non-mechanised, or 
even mechanised, ploughing, especially since the 
general shape of the barrow remains largely 
unchanged from Wm Cunnington’s original sketch 
of 1804 to the present day (compare Figures 2a, b & 
c). Another change noted by Maud Cunnington was 
that, ‘There are beech trees of considerable age 
