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Barrows and Chambered Cairns

Monuments that contain the bones of ancestors were built in the Neolithic.  In the Later Neolithic and Earlier Bronze Age buried skeletons and cremation deposits were placed in the barrows as representatives of local communities.

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What are Chambered Cairns and Long Barrows?

These are the earliest impressive monuments built by people in the Peak.

Chambered cairns have mounds with internal chambers built with large stone slabs, often with low entrance passages.  A fine example is that at Five Wells where the two chambers with ruined entrance passages have been exposed by stone robbers.  In other cases the large stone boxes could only be opened by removing a covering slab or side stones.

One of the chambers and ruined approach passage at the Five Wells chambered cairn between Taddington and Chelmorton, the other lies out of view behind the first.

One of the chambers of the Five Wells chambered cairn, between Taddington and Chelmorton, with part of the extensive view northwards.

Although often pillaged by antiquarians and stone robbers, enough has been found by excavators to show that they contained the bones of several individuals, probably placed here as collections of bones rather than complete bodies.  Some sites, probably early in date, are small and circular.  Others, such as Minninglow with several chambers, were added to over the generations to eventually form massive oval mounds.

Minninglow chambered tomb, now surrounded by a plantation, is visible across much of the Peak District.

One of at least four stone tomb chambers in Minninglow, the most impressive surviving chambered cairn in the Peak District.

Another Neolithic practice was the building of long mounds, some with surviving stone chambers, while others were perhaps built in timber rather than stone.  An exceptional site, Long Low near Wetton, has a mound that is 210m long with a sealed chamber at its broader end and a forecourt in which to hold rituals and ceremonies.

Plans of Neolithic long barrows in the Peak District, including Gib Hill and the exceptional chambered long barrow at Long Low near Wetton (A: Perryfoot, B: Harrod Low, C: Longstone Moor, D: Gospel Hillocks, E: Rockhurst, F: Long Low, G: The Bull Ring, H: The Tong, I: Gib Hill).

Gib Hill prehistorical burial barrow was built near to Arbor Low henge.

The prominent Bronze Age round mound is superimposed on one end of an earlier long barrow, visible to the left.

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Who built them and why?

These monuments, found in small numbers spaced across the limestone plateau, were built by Neolithic people who probably travelled around the landscape seasonally with their animals.   The monuments, with the bones of their ancestors, were a powerful reminder that their builders had long-established tenure over the rich grazing areas of the limestone plateau.  These bones, probably placed here after ceremonies that transformed them from dead relatives to potent symbols of the presence of ancestors, would have been the focal point for rituals.  These linked people with the world of spirits, which was probably seen as having a powerful influence on the land of the living.

Burying ancestors in barrows like this one on Big Moor linked communities to the land.

Pike Low prehistoric burial barrow

Howden prehistoric burial barrow exposed in Howden Reservoir during dry weather

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Round Barrows

Several hundred round barrows survive in the Peak.

Superficially they often look today to be simple round mounds of 10-30m diameter built of earth and/or stone.   However, when carefully excavated they reveal a wide variety of internal structures and deposits.  Sometimes there are buried kerbs, small stone boxes known as cists, and grave pits cut deep into the bedrock.

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Who built them and why?

Often the mounds were enlarged several times, and there is evidence that some at least were places for ceremonies and burials well before the mounds were built.  A bewildering variety of burials took place, although the emphasis is usually on the individual rather than mixed bones of ancestors.  Sometimes bodies were placed in the ground, often on their sides in a foetal position.   At other times bodies had been cremated first and the bones were commonly placed in a pit or funerary urn.  In other cases bodies were left exposed to rot and the bones later buried under the mound or elsewhere.  Often burials were accompanied by simple funerary or grave goods, such as pots, stone and bone tools or ornaments.  Occasionally such items as jet necklaces and bronze daggers have been found.

A unusual unexcavated prehistoric monument at the Bull Stone north of Wincle.  A low platform edged with stones and possibly covering burials surrounds a central standing stone.  While prehistoric burial mounds are often simple circular mounds, this site reminds us that other forms were occasionally adopted by prehistoric farmers; in this example its nearest close parallels are in south-west Scotland.

The hollows on this large stone, at the centre of a barrow at the western end of Eyam Moor, were created by people in the Neolithic or Earlier Bronze Age.  This 'rock art' is so abstract that it gives few clues as to its meaning.  The stone itself is possible displaced from a stone burial cist that may have existed within the barrow.

The Bronze Age monuments are more local in emphasis than those built in the Neolithic, each built by a local farming family rather than the community as a whole.  There is little to suggest the people buried here had high status. Rather, it appears each farming community buried selected representatives to oversee the well-being of the living and the local land within which they lived and farmed.  While the outward form of the mound was visible to all, the varied ceremonies were more personal to the participants and were different from place to place and from generation to generation.

A Bronze Age round barrow at Harley Hill near Earl Sterndale.

The prominent commemorative cairns, is known as 'the Three Men of Gardom's' and are a well-known walkers landmark, first created in the 18th century.  What few people notice is that they are placed on the top of a large but low Bronze Age barrow, the edge of which is clearly visible in the foreground.

A few small earthen round barrows were built much later, in the Early Medieval period from around 600 to 700 AD.  These contain the graves of the local Anglian elite of the Pecsaetne (The People of the Peak).  Sometimes they contained rich grave goods such as iron swords or gold and bronze ornaments.  At Benty Grange near Monyash there was also a fine warrior’s helmet with boar’s crest, one of only four found in the country.  Other Anglian burials were occasionally inserted into prehistoric barrows.

Anglian Barrow near Chelmorton

Map showing an example of the distribution of prehistoric monuments and cairnfields on the East Moors, at Gibbet Moor, Harland Edge and Beeley Moor.

Many of the barrows marked on Ordnance Survey maps are simple heather- or grass-covered mounds, but worth visiting for their impressive locations and the thoughts they evoke about our distant ancestors.

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What you can do

Click here for information on visiting archaeological sites in the Peak District

For more information on barrows and chambered cairns go to Taming the Land

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