Join us for a few days touring around Wiltshire, The Cotswolds and Avon with a sneaky dash to Oxfordshire for good measure. Lots of history, stone circles, burial chambers and hill forts amongst other items of interest.
Each place of interest is shown on its own separate article, reached by clicking/tapping the photos below. A link on each page will bring you back here.
Wednesday 29 May 1998. After calling at Bibury, Fran and I headed up through Northleach and then Bourton-on-the-Water which we shall see in the next entry. We booked in for two nights in Bourton and then drove out to look at a couple of long barrows, along the lines of West Kennet Long Barrow seen a few days ago.
Our first stop according to the map was Notgrove Long Barrow. Here's the car in the massive lay-by they have provided at Notgrove to take the hordes of visitors who flock in their.... er... we're on our own... There are several piles of gravel stored in the lay-by. A number of traffic cones help by showing a British car in its natural environment... Ok... so why am I prevaricating and delaying our look at Notgrove? Moi? Here it is!
Notgrove Long Barrow (according to the signboard nearby) was vandalised and to avoid further damage was backfilled by the local council. In other words, they brought a load of earth and filled it in. So it now looks like a hill. It no longer has hollow bits.
However, archeologists at some point in the future, say in a few hundred years, if they are confident that the vandals aren't lying in wait, can dig it out again as to their trained eyes it will be obvious which dirt is the added dirt. Ye-e-e-e-es... Ok, let's go somewhere else!
Well this is looking promising! The signpost, despite being perfectly horizontal, points towards a path that really is quite a way from the horizontal and in no time at all we are puffing and panting our way up a steep hill and hoping that we shall find something that doesn't totally resemble a natural hill.
Happily we arrive at a tumulus that does not in any way disappoint the curious traveller. This is not the entrance to the tomb. This is an elaborate false entrance to slow down the would be treasure seeker of millenia ago. The main entrance is round the back and we'll see that in a bit.
Before we get round that far though there are several small chambers entered through small outlets in the side of the mound. Standing against this, the lintel of the entrance is at groin height...
So to take this photograph I've crawled inside on my stomach. The chamber takes a quarter turn to the right and is incredibly professional looking. If they built one of these today it would not look too different from this - neat rows of brick and look at the ceiling!!! What is holding it up?!? So they were no slouches two or three thousand years ago...
And here I am, crouching in the rear entrance - which again has been backfilled. Looking at the height of the mound here, the main chamber was excavated underground rather than built on the level and then covered as at West Kennet.
So we may have started with a disappointment with Notgrove Hill (ex long barrow) but Belas Knap, besides having a wonderful name, offers a wonderfully atmospheric and mysterious glimpse of a past so far back that the name England was still thousands of years in the future.
It's still Sunday 26 May 1998. After leaving Avebury, we parked the car at nearby Silbury Hill and walked up the long path opposite towards West Kennet Long Barrow.
This crop circle met us halfway up the hill. It had been formed in the early hours of 4 May 1998 in a crop of oil seed rape. It was a 250-280ft diameter ring with 33 scroll motifs fitted into the ring. As I took the photograph a chap said "So is it aliens or what?" With great effort I resisted the urge to laugh and say "You Earthlings are so funny!"
This is what we had really come to see. West Kennet Long Barrow. The barrow has five chambers that contained human remains. The huge stones were added much later to block off the entrance with it's small courtyard, when the tomb ceased to be used.
These places can have no small atmosphere of their own... The entrance is seen here, reached by walking around the side of the standing stones.
How light it is inside depends on whether the turf has grown over some small skylights that have been set into the ceiling of the tombs. The first set of skylights have been covered on the hillside above with a thoughtful slab of concrete, not entirely in keeping with its surroundings... We had been here once before in 1990 when the turf had blocked out all of the other skylights. Now, the light was almost enough so that you didn't have to walk holding a nervous hand outstretched before you! I had a separate flashgun with me and placed it in the side chamber to the left for this shot. It was fired with a gizmo that set it off when it "saw" the burst of light from the on-camera flash.
Finally, a view from the far end of the chamber, looking back towards the entrance. Miss Franny is playing at being a cave troll...
The front of the barrow is a statement of respect and protection for the dead people whose remains the barrow contained.
I've gone inside the tomb, ducked under the low doorway behind the standing stones and moved about 3 paces inside. It is dark!!!
From the same viewpoint. I forgot to close my eyes and had to stand still for a good 5 minutes until my eyes were able to make out anything in the dark. Had I know I was going to be visiting the tomb I might have thought to bring a torch... The Famous Five would never have been at such a loss...
Also taken from exactly the same spot but having turned to face away from the entrance. I remembered to close my eyes this time and it only took just over a minute before I realised that I wasn't going to be able to see anything more than I could already...
Having literally groped my way to the final chamber, inch by inch with my hand outstretched until it struck the rear wall, I backed off a little and took this photo of the final chamber. Large uprights are capped by horizontal stones and small flat stones almost like tiles are stacked to fill the gaps.