Stoney Littleton Neolithic chambered long barrow
       
     
A typical Cotswold-Severn type long barrow
       
     
At the very back of the long barrow, some 42 feet from the entrance and just a tad claustrophobic
       
     
Another ammonite impression (just right of centre) in one of the burial chambers
       
     
Looking back into the interior. Note the roof corbelling, the pinch point about half way down and the modern buttressing in the foreground
       
     
The entrance and interior are approximately aligned with the rising sun of the Winter Solstice
       
     
The side view
       
     
The impression of the fossilised ammonite in the left hand entrance stone
       
     
Stoney Littleton Neolithic chambered long barrow
       
     
Stoney Littleton Neolithic chambered long barrow

Just South of Bath in North Somerset, this is one of the best preserved long barrows in the UK. It’s in quite an isolated bit of countryside and not terribly easy to locate unless you have a large scale OS map and enough time on your hands. The main attractions are that you can go inside it, that it has seven burial chambers, is over 5,500 years old and that one of the entrance stones has the impression of a fossilised ammonite in it. What more could you ask of a site?

Though it is well preserved it has been subject to some renovation over the centuries so just how authentic it is is open to question. Our Georgian and Victorian ancestors showed no remorse in reassembling some of these sites with a little bit of artistic or fanciful license. Excavated in the early 1800s the burial chambers contained the bones of several individuals and some of the bones had been burnt. Possibly there had been a change from excarnation to cremation of the dead at some point in the barrows use.

A typical Cotswold-Severn type long barrow
       
     
A typical Cotswold-Severn type long barrow
At the very back of the long barrow, some 42 feet from the entrance and just a tad claustrophobic
       
     
At the very back of the long barrow, some 42 feet from the entrance and just a tad claustrophobic
Another ammonite impression (just right of centre) in one of the burial chambers
       
     
Another ammonite impression (just right of centre) in one of the burial chambers
Looking back into the interior. Note the roof corbelling, the pinch point about half way down and the modern buttressing in the foreground
       
     
Looking back into the interior. Note the roof corbelling, the pinch point about half way down and the modern buttressing in the foreground
The entrance and interior are approximately aligned with the rising sun of the Winter Solstice
       
     
The entrance and interior are approximately aligned with the rising sun of the Winter Solstice
The side view
       
     
The side view
The impression of the fossilised ammonite in the left hand entrance stone
       
     
The impression of the fossilised ammonite in the left hand entrance stone