Long or round, large or small, prehistoric tumuli dot the countryside. Vicky Liddell explores the history, folklore and literary influence of burial mounds or barrows and reveals how they were nearly lost to the 18th-century digging mania.
And one tree-crowned long barrow
Stretched like a sow that has brought forth her farrow
Hides a king’s bones
Lying like broken sticks among the stones.— Andrew Young, ‘Wiltshire Downs’
Driving…