85 



JTotes on §arro^biggiitp in t\t Jarajr of 

 CoUin|knw jnck 



By the Rev. W. C. Lttkis. 



GROUP of thirteen barrows may be seen on the western 

 side of the turnpike road leading from the parish of 

 Collingbourne Ducis to North Tidworth. Two of them in a plan- 

 tation are of large size, and occupy a central position of the 

 group. The remaining eleven are of various dimensions, and three 

 or four are only a few inches in elevation, and require a practised 

 eye to discover them. They form an interesting collection of 

 mounds, because exclusive of their contents, they present a some- 

 what irregular line running nearly east and west, and exhibit a 

 variety of forms which may perhaps assist us in elucidating what 

 has always been a difficult problem, — viz. the mode of their con- 

 struction. 



It is remarkable, and I venture to add very fortunate, that these 

 mounds escaped the scrutiny of Sir Richard Colt Hoare, who, with 

 the most praiseworthy aim, unwittingly did as much as any man 

 could to prevent archseologists from knowing, to the full extent, 

 what his vast researches and extensive experience should have 

 taught them respecting Wiltshire Barrows, and to mislead barrow 

 diggers of a later day. What a mass of most deeply interesting 

 information relating to the construction of Barrows, and how many 

 articles of antiquity of great value have been overlooked and lost 

 through the mode in which he prosecuted his researches. If he 

 had himself handled the spade, or been continually present with 

 his labourers, and if he had given more time to the examination 

 of each barrow, we should not now have to lament the unscientific 

 opening of innumerable barrows, and the loss which the history of 

 the early human occupation of the County has sustained. An aged 

 " shepherd of Salisbury Plain," now deceased, who himself be- 



