Neolithic Worcestershire - or lack thereof
Lets be clear, if the ramblers association had a militant wing, I’d most probably join up. I’m a keen walker of Worcestershire's footpaths and frequently have to contend with barbed wire, electric fences, damaged stiles and curiously holly bushes that only grow next to and over access gates. This is before we mention the missing signposts, overgrown footpaths, violent cows and on one occasion, an actual farmer with an actual shotgun (I’m not kidding).
I know since Clarkson we’re all supposed to be sympathetic to farmers, but I’d be much more sympathetic if farmers didn't continue to come across as the same nature hating, foot path destroying, fat subsidy collecting bunch of arseholes they’ve always been. Funny how they plead poverty with two new Range Rovers on the drive. Yes, this is based on plenty of empirical evidence. I can easily give several examples I regularly walk where there is £200K of vehicles on the drive and land made as inhospitable as humanly possible for anyone wishing to use a two foot wide footpath across it. This is without thinking of the gentleman farmer with two massive killer dogs who don’t understand about rights of way at all.
The English counties of Hereford, Shropshire and of course the entire Cotswolds, show numerous sites evidencing the presence of neolithic man, doing what ever neolithic man did when not hunting, eating, shagging or sleeping. There are barrows, stone circles and other sites spread across those counties. Worcestershire however, has almost none. We know neolithic man must have been here, the county still holds lots of beautiful woodland, rich soil and the huge river Severn as well as the notable Teme and Avon. There are some interesting place names, hills and rocks that certainly suggest an historical relationship with something ancient and important, but little in the way of actual evidence. Why? Well we’re back the bloody farmers again. Pretty much anything that may once have existed has been ploughed to nothing, planted, mowed and churned up in Worcestershire's fertile farmland. Any stone evidence is now likely either buried or propping up fence posts. Far too tempting to gain a little more land you can claim subsidies on (sorry farm) rather than preserve something important.
One of the few sites in Worcestershire that MIGHT be an ancient land working, is Barrow Hill in the parish (and near the village of) Chaddesley Corbett. Now straight off the bat, the name itself is interesting, in the first chapter of ‘The old straight track’ Alfred Watkins suggests that many names may have been attached to pre-Roman mounds, one of which is of course, barrow. In the 1840’s the venerable Worcestershire antiquarian Jabez Allies visited the site and described it in detail in his book, "On Ancient British Roman and Saxon Antiquities and Folklore of Worcestershire" which might be found on Google Books for anyone interested. He describes the site as a ‘fine artificial tumulus’ with a ‘round tump’ at the Eastern side. So not the correct terminology but he certainly believed it was an artificial barrow.
Later in the 1800’s it was described by one T.C Cantrill in the ‘Transactions of the Worcestershire Naturalists Club’ as a natural knoll of glacial origin. He did also apparently find 3 flint flakes which suggests even if natural, the site was in use at one time. It's worth noting that Worcestershire barrows are normally expected to be of soil/sand given the underlying geography. In various 20th century references, it's described as artificial and as an ancient burial ground (which suggests a barrow).
In modern references, it's described on the Historic England entry as a bowl barrow with little other information. I can’t check the Heritage Gateway HER record as outlined in my previous blog post, it doesn't currently return any records and Worcestershire county council show no signs of fixing it. I think it says it's a Norman motte, but the site shows no further features like a moat that would suggest this.
Trying to visit the site to gather any further oversight is next to impossible. I tried to visit at the end of a long and otherwise very pleasant walk. There is a bridleway that runs down the one side but that's been planted with a thick and very mature hedge. The side of the site nearest the road is protected by an 8ft tall fence with considerable amounts of barbed wire. Overall even a dedicated trespasser would struggle to get access to this site. This seems to have been true for most of the last few decades with little or no investigation having been done since the 1800s. It was apparently described in the 1969 as "the best barrow left in Worcestershire" So there it sits, possibly a neolithic feature on Worcestershire's landscape but neglected, unused and inaccessible. The farmers strike again.