The Three Hills at Bartlow - Roman Barrow Cemetery

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Bartlow Hills Barrow Cemetery
Bartlow Hills was originally the largest group of Roman barrows in northern Europe and includes the highest burial mound in Britain. The seven mounds covered extraordinarily rich burials containing a wonderful collection of artistic objects, the best found in Britain. Mound IV, the largest, is 45 feet high and 144 feet in diameter. Mound II is still visible as a low rise, I is just discernible and III is totally destroyed. Their steep conical shape, originally surrounded by a ditch, is typical of Roman burial mounds. Large wooden chests with iron fittings were found in five mounds and there was a brick cist in another.
Cremated burials, with food and drink in exotic vessels of decorated bronze, glass, and potter and other sacrificial offerings had been deposited in the chests, which were buried with lamps still burning in them. Items found included an iron folding chair and remains of flowers, box leaves, a sponge, incense, and liquids including blood, milk and wine mixed with honey. Burial mounds of this type were built in the late first and early second centuries AD in Eastern England and Belgium. Most artifacts in them show the high status of the owner; they were usually imported from the Rhineland and Northern Gaul, and are concerned with feasting and sacrificial offerings, rather than personal belongings which would be useful in the Afterlife. In 1815 Busick Harwood "excavated" VI to provide work for the unemployed...."They began at the apex and digging down at great labour to the cist despoiled it of its contents, which were distributed and no account of them taken". However, some of the humbler items went to Saffron Walden museum where they survive. John Cage carried out better recorded excavations between 1832 and 1840. Eminent scientists, including Faraday, pioneer of electricity, analysed the contents of vessels and other organic remains. Cage's reports are the only evidence we now have, for all the objects were taken to Easton Lodge, Dunmow, where they were destroyed by fire in 1847. The surviving mounds became overgrown before they were taken into guardianship by Essex County Council in 1978. the scrub was cleared and fences built for protection. the Hills passed to Cambridgeshire County Council in 1990 after a change in the County boundary. Built of chalk and unusable for agriculture, the surviving mounds are a refuge for the distinctive plants and insects of chalk grassland; the Pasque flower grew here until early this century. Regular mowing in late summer will prevent the scrub from spreading
	Objects found in the Hills at Bartlow. Left - glass cremation urn. Right and above - vessels found in barrows.
The Three Hills at Bartlow, circa 1900.
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Bartlow Hills Barrow Cemetery

Objects found in the Hills at Bartlow.