Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2012
The re-excavation of this well-known barrow was undertaken at the suggestion and cost of Sir Edmund Davis (upon whose estate it is situated) after the recent publication of Dr. R. Austin Freeman's novel, The Penrose Mystery, in which it largely figures. With the ready consent of the Commissioners of His Majesty's Office of Works, the work was carried out in July 1936, and the writer had the assistance either for the whole or part of the time of Miss M. E. Greenwood, Dr. S. Graham Brade-Birks, and Sir Edward Harrison; and our thanks are due to Mr. H. Read Gillett, Sir Edmund Davis's agent, for much valuable help.
page 122 note 1 A contour plan of the barrow is in course of preparation by the Surveying Department of the South Eastern Agricultural College at Wye, but through unavoidable circumstances its publication must be delayed.
page 122 note 2 O.S. Professional Papers, N.S., no. 8 (1924).
page 122 note 3 Map references: Kent, 6-in. Sheet 45 S.E., 1-in. popular edition Sheet 116, J. 13.
page 122 note 4 But much of the land in East Kent is still park and downland; and the early antiquaries were more concerned with the spoliation of Saxon graves than with flint implements.
page 123 note 1 Camden, Britannia, 2nd ed. i (1722), 238.
page 123 note 2 W. Lambarde, Perambulation of Kent (1576), 305–6.
page 123 note 3 Kilburne, R., A Topographie … of Kent (1650), 56Google Scholar.
page 123 note 4 Philipott, T., Villare Cantianum (1659), 117Google Scholar.
page 123 note 5 Hasted, E., History of Kent, Folio Edition, iii (1790), 140Google Scholar and footnote i.
page 124 note 1 For instance, Wallenburg, J. K., The Place Names of Kent (Uppsala, 1934), 374Google Scholar.
page 125 note 1 Hasted, op. cit., 140, footnote i. It was then only 4 ft. longer than now.
page 125 note 2 A heap of the debris on the floor of the pit is cut into by the garden of the present cottage, and probably the primary burial from the barrow is down there as well.
page 125 note 3 The ‘three curious transverse grooves’ mentioned by Petrie, (Arch. Cant. xii (1880), 11Google Scholar) cannot now be identified.
page 125 note 4 This suggestion I owe to Mr. Charles Hardy, whose family owned the estate from 1861 to 1918; it is known that the Wildmans did make a trench right across the mound but its site was never recorded.
page 126 note 1 Antiquitates Rutupinae (Oxford, 1745), abridged English edition, The Antiquities of Richborough and Reculver (1774), 109–12.
page 126 note 2 Nichol, , Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, iv (1822), 96Google Scholar.
page 127 note 1 Itinerarium Curiosum, ii (1724), pl. 54, 56, 57.
page 127 note 2 Mr. L. V. Grinsell has recently called attention to a similar feature at Fernworthy on Dartmoor (The Ancient Burial Mounds of England (1936), 99).
page 127 note 3 An interesting feature, noted by Dr. Brade-Birks, is the great preponderance of non-local spongy flint.
page 128 note 1 Similar pits have been found under other long barrows, but usually in the original ground-surface, e.g. at Therfield Heath and Giants' Hills, Skendleby.
page 129 note 1 Auger tests made by Dr. Brade-Birks show that there is still practically no surface material 30 ft. from the mound; this accounts for the exceptionally poor covering of grass.
page 129 note 2 At Thickthorn, Wor Barrow, and Holdenhurst (Proc. Prehist. Soc., N.S., ii, part I, 81) ; at Therfield Heath (Proc. Prehist. Soc. for 1935, 103).
page 129 note 3 The outer lip of the ditch had been mutilated by ploughing.
page 131 note 1 But at Thickthorn barrow the incrustation was confined to the less patinated flints in the lower levels of the ditch (Proc. Prehist. Soc. for 1936, 89).