66 THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 
growing on the barrow’ (1914, 386-7) whereas, the 
1804 sketch (Figure 2a, Lambert 1806, 15, plate xvi, 
fig. 4) shows it treeless. 
A re-survey of the barrow in June 2000 provides 
a plan and profile that matches William 
Cunnington’s description and sketch but more 
accurately reflects the measurements taken by 
Maud Cunnington and published in 1913. Our 
survey (Figure 3) indicates that the barrow cannot 
have exceeded much more than 35 m in 1804, that 
is, about one hundred and sixteen feet. Recording a 
comparable width at the eastern end is more 
difficult as it is uncertain where the earlier 
measurements were likely to have been taken, and 
our survey records a width nearer 15 m (50 ft). The 
height of 9 ft (c. 2.7 m) recorded in 1804 is not far 
different from the 2.26 m (7% feet) we measured in 
June 2000, 188 years later. From this we can only 
conclude that there was an error in the citation of 
William Cunnington’s original work. Rather than 
suggesting an  umncharacteristically inaccurate 
measurement on his part, it seems likely that 
either a transposition of the first two numbers 
(126 to 216 ft), or an incorrect reading of the field 
note as 216 rather than 116 ft occurred and went 
unnoticed. 
The plan (Figure 3a; Eagles and Field 
forthcoming, fig. 4) shows an eroded ovoid barrow, 
probably formerly wedge-shaped (Eagles and Field 
forthcoming). Although field survey did not record 
flanking ditches, augering (see below) proved the 
existence of these previously unrecorded features. 
The ditches were however recorded by the 
RCHME/Engish Heritage survey, and these have 
been added to our plan (after Eagles and Field 
forthcoming, fig 4). 
Our survey also demonstrates that the barrow is 
situated at the crest of the break in slope of a north- 
facing valley side (Figures 1 & 3b). Its location 
clearly faces the monument into the view of the 
Wylye Valley. On the southern side the natural 
chalk is exposed showing that the upslope side of 
the mound has, in antiquity, been eroded creating a 
bench, leaving the old land surface on this raised 
bench nearly 0.2 m above the present ground 
surface. 
W. Cunnington M.Cunnington Allen&Gardner 
1804 1914 2000 
width 25ft 7.6m): = - SO ft 15.2m 
length 216ft 65.8m 120ft 366m 116ft 35.5m 
height 9 ft 24m" 3 - 72 ft  2.26m 
THE BARROW 
The results of Cunnington’s excavation in 1804 
made him re-evaluate the monument, whereupon 
he concluded that it was a regular long barrow, its 
double-barrow form created by a division in the 
centre probably due to ‘the removal of earth from 
that spot by farmers’ (Hoare 1812, 102; Lambert 
1806, 339). His excavation at the extreme eastern 
end of Corton Long Barrow revealed seven adults 
and one child lying on the ‘floor of the barrow, 
between two excavations in the native soil, of an 
oval form’ (Hoare 1812, 102). The oval pits were cut 
through the buried soil on which the skeletons lay 
and into the chalk. They were about 4 ft long (c.1.2 
m) and 2% ft deep (c. 0.76 m). Both the oval gullies 
or pits and the burials were sealed beneath a cairn 
(‘pyramid’) of flints and stone 20 ft by 10 ft (6.1 m 
x 3 m) in extent which seems to have been capped 
by a large stone. The capping stone, presumably a 
sarsen, was so large it required three men to lift it 
out. There is no record of its whereabouts and it 
was presumably backfilled into the mound, or 
removed to Cunnington’s residence in Heytesbury. 
Ashbee (1970, 52) considers this description to fit 
that of a, probably partially collapsed, mortuary 
enclosure. 
THE MILLENNIUM VISIT 
In March 2000 the present authors were invited by 
the parishioners of Boyton to lead an archaeology 
day as part of the parish’s millennium 
celebrations. The day began with introductory 
talks on the archaeology of the Wylye Valley and 
the secrets and splendours of environmental 
archaeology and was followed by a visit to the 
Corton Long Barrow, today the most obvious 
prehistoric site in the neighbourhood. There we 
undertook some very limited fieldwork in order to 
demonstrate to the thirty or so good souls who had 
joined us the effectiveness of minimally intrusive 
augering in recovering and recording ‘hidden’ 
archaeological information and to emphasise the 
significance and fragility of one of the 
archaeological sites on their doorstep. Our 
primary archaeological aim was to record the 
presence and nature of the buried soil beneath the 
mound and to sample it for land snails and pollen. 
We hoped to be able to define something of the 
environmental history and also to gain some 
