317 



EXAMINATION OF 



§arrofos on t\t § a tons «f Jart| TOttejat 



in 1853-57. 



By John Thtjrnam, M.D., F.S.A. 



OST of the barrows on the North Wiltshire Downs have 

 been examined: some by Sir R. 0. Hoare, some by his 

 colleague Mr. Cunnington, and others by the late Dean Merewe- 

 ther; but many by unknown and unqualified persons, who, whilst 

 they have defaced these ancient mounds, have left no record of their 

 operations. It is clearly the duty of those who engage in such 

 researches to describe them, and I have pleasure in responding to 

 the request of our Committee, that I would give some account of 

 the few barrows I have opened on these Downs, during the past sum- 

 mers. I will commence with those near Shepherd's Shore, about 

 five miles to the north of Devizes. 



1. The first is close to the London road at New Shepherd's Shore,, 

 and immediately adjacent to the remarkable triplet barrow, exam- 

 ined in 1804 and 1814 by Mr. Cunnington and Sir R. C. Hoare,, 

 the curious proportions of which are in course of gradual oblitera- 

 tion, by the foot-paths and trackways made across them to the 

 adjacent farmstead and cottages. 1 That we opened in 1855 is a 

 bell-shaped barrow about five and a half feet in height. In the 

 centre, in a shallow cist scooped out of the chalk rock, was a deposit 

 of burnt human bones, without an admixture of charcoal, or any 

 object of art or other relic. It may be observed that when the 

 other barrows of this group, including two of those forming the 



1 In June 1852, through the kindness of Mr. William Cunnington, the writer 

 witnessed the large but unsuccessful excavation made in the large mound, the 

 more northern of this triplet, which had previously baffled Sir H. C. Hoare. See 

 Ancient Wilts, vol. ii. p. 92. The external form of these curiously arranged 

 barrows is well described by Mr. Falkner of Devizes, in the Archseologia, 1847, 

 vol. xxxii p. 457. 



