Telling stories on the barrow

Dr Cleal, hearing C-H-M's appeal for more material, has emerged from hiding, blinking into the light and very kindly sent C-H-M this picture. She writes "... at some time in the 80s, I think after your time but I may be wrong, we started going to sit on the top of Crippets long barrow in the field next to Ullenwood, usually after we'd been to the pub (strange, that). This is an occasion in 1984 and the protaganists are from left front clockwise : I'm afraid unknown (or forgotten on my part), Julian Thomas (now Professor Thomas, University of Manchester), Clive Anderson, Nicky Snashall, Clare Milroy, Julie Lancley, Simon (help - have temporarily forgotten his surname) [Figg? Ed.], self, Dave Southwood (Biggles). We certainly did this on more than one occasion and I've since looked up Crippets in the 1920s volume on Gloucestershire long barrows by the well known field archaeologist O.G.S.Crawford in which he notes that there is evidence of some antiquarian activity - well, we should have recognised that, as we were sitting with our feet in the remains of the 'dig' - but I'm not sure that did occur to us (except perhaps to Julian!). If you're putting stuff on line you can mention that Nicky (usually 'Nick' now) and I now work for the National Trust at Avebury where we recreate, as far as is possible, the ambience of the CH finds and planning huts - all we lack is Corky to keep us in order."

To which Dr Ferris muses: "Oh, the youth of today thinking they invented everything-the jet engine, alcohol, cyber-sex, the wireless, pot noodles, sitting on Crippets barrow at night etc. I remember some splendid late night, GL-fuelled,ghost-story-telling sessions on the barrow in 1976 and 1978, the latter being my opportunity to reveal my strange experience with the ghost of a miner encountered in County Durham. And I wasn't making it up." How much GL had you had when you met the miner?

The Crickley Chronicle No 22

Jill Hummerstone included with her photographs a couple of copies of the 'Crickley Chronicle', the newsletter of the Friends of the Crickley Hill Trust, which was edited by Lydia Savage. Today pages 1 and 5 from the Spring 1990 issue no 22. Page 1 asks the question "What are these people doing?" and page 5 provides the answer.

"February ...... The Friendlier Fieldwalking Survey

Earlier this year thanks to the permission of Mike Cuttell the owner of Ullenwood Court Farm, the opportunity arose to undertake a fieldwalking survey of the Crippets Field Long Barrow and its environs. This would be the last chance that anyone would have to carry out such a survey for some time as the field was soon to put to pasture. Hence we approached our task with a good deal of enthusiasm.

Our aim was to undertake a hacher survey of the longbarrow itself and to fieldwalk the surrounding area, along with that on and around the ploughed out round barrow which lies to the south of this. While one party strode into the undergrowth atop the longbarrow clutching the theodolite and a set of ranging poles, the remainder edged their way forward clutching their markers with a cry of 'Eyes down for a full house'.

Despite a brief period when we wondered whether flippers might not be a more suitable form of attire than walking boots all those who took part remained undeterred and the weekend was well supported. We managed to achieve all our objectives in the time allowed and satisfyingly, finds were plentiful. These consisted chiefly of flint (including a D-shaped scraper and a slug knife) and a smaller quantity of pottery.

Our 'friendly' flintophile John Gale will be looking at the finds in more detail and thanks must go to him and all the other friends who helped make the weekend such a resounding success."

C-H-M does not know what a 'hacher survey' is. Neither does Google. Can anyone enlighten him? There's a picture of a D-shaped scraper here. I could only find a picture of a slug on a knife as opposed to a slug knife so will not trouble my readers with it.

Dr Ferris wittily illuminates: "Making a hash of it: That's because the word is 'hachure'. A hachure is the symbol to denote slope; the thicker end of the hachure being the higher point. Thus one can use hachures to depict both banks and ditches etc very easily and clearly. C'est tout."

The Long Barrow

Lara Unger dug at Crickley in 1993 and she has very kindly sent me her photographs from that season. Here is a beautiful shot of the long barrow taken during the walk between Ullenwood and the site.

Witts' Handbook of Gloucestershire contains the following entry:

"No. 11. — Crippetts Barrow

This fine tumulus is a conspicuous object on Shurdington Hill, •three miles south of Cheltenham, and three quarters of a mile north-east of the Crickley Hill Camp. The position affords extensive views over the vale of Gloucester. The barrow is •189 feet long, its greatest width being 100 feet, and greatest height 20 feet. Its direction is nearly east and west, the highest position lying towards the east. Many years ago the tenant of the land began to move away part of the earth at the southern extremity, and in doing so uncovered a cromlech, in which was found a skeleton and several articles of which no satisfactory account can now be obtained. The ground in which the tumulus stands is still called the "Barrow Piece." It has never been thoroughly examined, though it has been carefully protected by placing a fence round it — a good example which might be followed in many other cases. There are two round barrows in the same field.

See "Journal of Archaeological Association," vol. III, p64.

Also "Celt, Roman, and Saxon," 1875, p74.

See "Anthropological Review," vol. III, pp66 and 71.

Also "Archaeologia," vol. XLII, p201. "

Savage 1988: 10 Herdsman and Quarryman

Time for the 10th section of Richard Savage's 1988 booklet: to him and the Crickley Hill Trust thanks for the permission to reproduce.

"10 Herdsman and Quarryman

After the burning of the final dark age settlement the hill reverted to pasture. In the Middle Ages the northern slopes may have served as grazing for Brockworth Parish, whose boundary runs along the crest overlooking Gloucester. A small rectangle of stone-walled building, perhaps a shepherd's shieling, lay just inside the boundary. At about this time the hamlets below the site is first mentioned by name, as Creke in 1237 and Crekelege in c. 1240. The name is understood to mean "clearing (leah) by the hill (*crouc)”. The latter is a British word, and although the eminence became known eventually as Crickley Hill, "the hill of Crickley", it is interesting to note that it seems in our earliest sources simply to have been known by a Celtic name, "the hill". During the 17th century pits for lime burning were opened, destroying about an acre of the prehistoric settlements.

In the next century quarrying began on the slopes, and had produced steep cliffs by the early 19th century. The Iron Age ramparts had already been noticed, and appears as "Roman intrenchment" on the Tithe Map of 1838. The bulk of the site to lay by now in the ownership of Hallingwood (Ullenwood) Farm nearly a mile away. Maps of the holding in 1807 and 1863 revealed the reason of the survival of the archaeological deposits, the arable land of Ullenwood stretched west of the farm as far as Crippets long barrow, and east and south towards Coberley. Crickley was protected by two belts of woodland (Short-wood and Hallingwood) and was used as a rough pasture too far from the farmhouse to be worth ploughing. So it remained, threatened by the quarry on its north flank, in separate annual tenancy from the lords of Badgeworth Manor, but not devastated by agriculture. Quarry workings slackened in the 1930s, and ended in the 1960s, shortly before the beginning of excavations.

[Photo: a 17th century pit for lime burning]"

Savage 1988, 4: The First Farmers

My thanks to Richard Savage and the Crickley Hill Trust for permission to reproduce these abstracts from his 1988 booklet.  

"Neolithic Villagers c. 4000 to 2500 BC 

The first farming communities, "Neolithic" or "new Stone Age", whose cutting tools were stone and flint, reached Britain from the continent in the centuries about 4000 BC, bringing with them forerunners of plants and animals whose management still supports us now: wheat, barley, cattle, sheep, and pigs.  They also brought the manufacture of pottery, from this time the archaeologists most consistent guide to cultural change and affinity.  They represented a way of life, with origins in the Near East six millennia earlier or more, which totally changed man's relationship with his environment. 

A hunter-gatherer community will probably move with the seasons as its resources change, and over-exploits them at its peril.  Its numbers must always be small.  A farming community on the other hand must be static in the medium term to protect its growing crops and granaries, and well stored grain will remain in good condition for long enough to feed it through the year.  Domestic animals efficiently convert grass, foliage and other rough vegetable matter to human use.  In the longer term, while there is new land to farm, ill-management or even an increase in population can be tolerated. 

The methods of these first farmers, which were efficient, will have been at their most effective of the light well-drained soils, either of the uplands - as at Crickley - or of the parts of the valleys lying on sand or gravel.  In Britain they enjoyed for many centuries a climate warmer and drier than our own. 

[Illustration: Neolithic Axe E. J. P. Wilczynska]

 The earliest farmers left their traces in two parts of Crickley Hill.  On the shelf above the tip of the promontory to the west, they built at least four small insubstantial huts, from 2 m x 1m to 3 m x 2 m in size, with no finds or hearths associated with them at all.  It is possible that they were shelters for hunters or herdsman, but they may even have served a ritual purpose, perhaps as spirit houses or something similar.  Near the highest point of the hill, and overlooking the Vale, they left a series of pits in a long oval surrounding a space about 10 m by 4 m which had probably carried a small mound. The mound was removed and the pits filled in.  This structure, too, may have served some ritual purpose.

 About 3500 BC an area of about four acres at the highest point of the hill was enclosed with a bank built of stone quarried with antler picks from a line of shallow pits immediately outside it.  Along the inside edge of the bank was a wooden palisade, but the bank was less than half a metre high and palisade less than 2 m, so that the physical barrier was not very formidable.  It would have served at best to protect the defenders of the enclosures against arrows and other missile weapons, and to force attackers to break step at the ditch.  It may also have provided a moral or psychological boundary. 

[Illustration: The Neolithic ditch was quarried with antler picks R. Bryant] 

It seems likely - not yet quite certain - that this enclosure defended a settlement on the highest part of the hill, for the Neolithic finds of flint and pottery are most due densely clustered there.  A second bank and palisade, quarried from deeper ditches, was later added about 30 m inside it, to defend the same central area.  The original outer defence had at least five entrances, three to the east to the west where the tip of the promontory runs down to the Vale, and four of these were now matched by entrances through the inner defences.  Post holes suggest that all the entrances had wooden gates, and in through the southeastern entrants led a straight, fenced roadway with at least one rectangular wooden house beside it.  This was at the edge of the settlement, in the natural hollows some 50 m from the dense finds scatter which marks the centre of Neolithic occupation.  We can recognize this as a house because it stands in bedrock eroded to small particles in which large post holes were easily dug, and preserved by silt washing down into the hollow.  The bedrock at the centre of occupation is stone, and the soil deposits are very thin; the shapes of individual houses are here much harder to make out. 

[Illustration: Conjectural reconstruction of the first Neolithic village. The positions of the central houses are not yet known. C. Clark] 

The inner and outer defences were demolished, with deliberate burning, and their stone was used to refill the quarry pits.  The stone was later in part extracted and the banks were rebuilt.  This process was repeated a number of times, and finds of arrowheads suggest that several times the defences were attacked by bowmen.  The sequence of methodical destruction and rebuilding is hard to account for on strictly practical grounds, though it is common among sites of this kind, the "causewayed" or "interrupted-ditch" enclosures, of which over 40 are known in the Neolithic of south Britain.  It may have had a religious purpose.  We are dealing with people who invested in ritual structures and effort comparable with that which the Iron Age was to spend on fortifications, and were unlikely to have seen them as less practical.  For them the symbol and ritual provided indispensable indispensable part of the mechanism of everyday reality.  But there is no reason to believe that the arrow-attacks at Crickley were anything but serious and effective. 

[Illustration: Flint brought from 50km away was worked on the hill. P. Saxby]

 A kilometre to the north of Crickley Hill (on private ground) stands the Crippets long barrow.  It is the nearest of these Neolithic burial mounds, and although no certain evidence links it to the Crickley community, we may wonder whether some of their dead lie beneath it.  It is placed near the edge of the scarp and would be visible from the Vale for many miles, but for a modern planting of trees.  A kilometre to the south, at the Peak, Birdlip, trial excavation has shown another causewayed enclosure, and there are at least two scatters of Neolithic flint near the scarp edge between Crickley and Birdlip.  It is likely that Crickley forms part of a well-developed Neolithic landscape, whose long-distance trading links are made clear by its abundance of good flint, imported from no nearer than 50 km away to the east and southeast, and by its finds of polished stone axe-heads from much further afield. 

Before 2500 BC the site was abandoned.  The pits of the outer defence had been refilled, and not re-dug, sometime before; now the inner one, too, was left filled, and silted up.

 [Photograph: The Crippets long barrow. This stands on private ground]"

Dr Phillpotts's earliest published work ...

Dr Phillpotts sends me a interesting note: "It is an account of my experiences of the 1972 season which I wrote for the newsletter of the Bristol Archaeological Research Group to which I belonged whilst still at school, and which met at Bristol Museum under the leadership of the renowned veteran archaeologist Leslie Grinsell. I suppose it might count as my first published piece about twelve years before my first serious piece on Agincourt."

Chris is referring to his 1984 piece in the English Historical Review "The French plan of battle during the Agincourt campaign" a copy which may be downloaded here.  Well worth a read.   But here's Dr Phillpotts on CH72:

"This summer I assisted in the fourth season of excavation at Crickley Hill, near Cheltenham.  This is an Iron Age promontory fort on the edge of the Cotswolds, containing a Neolithic causewayed camp.  In the first three seasons the Iron Age entrance had been excavated, revealing two periods of building, the second much more sophisticated, and an intermediate repair job built after the burning of the first entrance.  Excavation of the Neolithic area had uncovered causewayed ditches comparable to those at the Windmill Hill site.

At the peak period there were about 70 volunteers working on the site, though this dwindled to about 40 in the last days.  When I arrived I was dismayed to find that the accommodation was a disused civil defence barracks.  Even this was overcrowded, with one unfortunate sleeping under the sink.  Every morning we were taken to the site in a decrepit coach driven by the caretaker, a giant of Eastern European extraction, known as 'Lofty'.  It was difficult to grasp the significance of the work we were doing as we seemed so isolated.  Contacts with the outside world were restricted to Thursdays.  

It was, however, an important site.  We stripped nearly an acre of ground down to bedrock, making three vast cuttings.  This revealed the potholes of a street of Iron Age longhouses, tailing down to a small ones straddling a Neolithic ditch - nicknamed 'Fred's Place' and a later Iron Age roundhouse along with some smaller buildings.  These two sets of buildings were almost certainly associated with the two building periods of the entrance.  All this showed up extremely well on the air-photographs.  In the Neolithic area  we uncovered the longest piece of uninterrupted Neolithic ditch in Britain, and Neolithic house and several less readily identifiable features.  Finds were unspectacular but extremely plentiful.  A couple of flint axe heads and lots of arrowheads came up, but most of the finds were animal bones and fragments of daub and pot, some of a revolting coarse-gritted variety that crumbled when you tried to wash it.  it is planned to open up an even larger area next year, and several more seasons are planned.  This is an extremely interesting site which should continue to produce good results.  Chris Phillpotts"

Well, the Chronicler got over his first impressions of Ullenwood: I wonder who was sleeping under the sink?

Witts's Ancient Camps - Crickley Camp

An extract from the Archaeological Handbook of the County of Gloucester by George Witts published by G. Norman, Clarence Street Cheltenham, n.d. (1883):

"No. 34. — Crickley Hill Camp.

This lies one mile north of the village of Birdlip, in the parish of Cubberley, and four miles south of Cheltenham. It is protected by a mound and ditch running across the projecting height in a slightly curved line, with a second mound and ditch running parallel to the main one, and 100 yards from it. The remaining three sides of the camp are protected by the precipitous nature of the hill. The area defended is about nine acres, and the earthworks still remaining show what an important position it must have been. On the high ground to the east of the camp the defences are much stronger than they are on the lower ground as they approach the escarpment. Unlike most other camps in the county, this has a perfect entrance, defended by an advanced bank and ditch; and in the immediate neighbourhood are six round barrows and one fine long barrow. 

See "Archaeologia," vol. XIX, p170, also "Proceedings Cott. Nat. Field Club," vol. VI, p210 and also "Transactions Bristol and Glou. Archae. Soc.," 1879-80, p206."

Excavations on Leckhampton Hill 1925

Thanks are due to the Secretary of the Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society for permission to reproduce extracts from the BGAS's Transactions.  Here a couple of intriguing items from 1925.

"Less than a mile away are three barrows, one a particularly fine long barrow of the Neolithic Age, at "the Crippets", two round barrows near the inn known as the "Air Balloon", and by the side of the road to Birdlip, was found a beautiful mirror enamelled in colours, at  a burial place of the Iron Age, one of the most striking specimens ever discovered of that period, now in Gloucester Museum.  Hence there was sufficient reason to welcome the opportunity of exploring and dating the tumulus and the adjoining camp.  

A particularly interesting feature of the core of Leckhampton Camp is the appearance of the action of fire or intense hear, which has reddened the yellow oolite rock in a remarkable way.  This peculiarity is not confined to Leckhampton Camp - for it is very noticeable at Crickley Camp - two miles away.  

Thomas Lloyd Baker, in a paper read before the Society of Antiquaries, London in 1818, refers to this fact for which there is no adequate explanation."