More information : [SJ 61409320] Tumulus [A.T.]
A few weeks before February 8th., 1860, labourers, at Winwick,
engaged in levelling a barrow in order to fill up a large ditch
near to it, found a large urn, containing human bones, a stone
axe-hammer and a bronze spear head. The tumulus stood within
twenty or thirty yards of another, being separated from it by a
lane [High Field Lane]. They were thought formerly to have been
parts of one large elongated tumulus but it is now believed that
they formed two distinct mounds.
The urn is stated by the labourers, to have been found two feet
belowthe surface of the mound; immediately below a layer of
burnt wood. It was hand made of clay mixed with grit and
imperfectly baked or burnt on the exterior. It must have been
of large size as its base was four inches in diameter. The part
of the urn above the shoulder bears the chevron patter which was
dotted on with a wooden point,whilst that below is plain. The
human bones had been cremated and were much cracked and broken.
The axe-hammer, which is of light-coloured claystone porphyry,
and measures four inches and three quarters in length, and above
one inch and a quarter across its cutting edge, having a
perforation seven-eights of an inch in diameter worked through its
centre to admit the shaft. The thin bronze blade is of a
primitive type; and has a flat tang with a rivet hole which has
been drilled from the opposite sides of the metal. The entire
length of this object is nearly four inches and a quarter ; but
the point is broken off. Its greatest width is one inch and
seven-sixteenths; and it weighs about one ounce and three-quarters.
A few weeks previously, the tumulus alluded to as being to the
westward of the present, was very carefully explored...; at
which examination fragments of funeral urns and human bones were
found ; but, they appeared to be much broken and disturbed by
husbandry operations. The human bones from this second barrow
were also cremated; and the un-ornamented fragment of the
sepulchral urn presents the same general features as that
previously mentioned.
A bronze tanged dagger blade from Winwick.... rather narrower
in the tang than another from a contracted interment barrow
near Driffield, Yorks.
A perforated axe-hammer of clay-stone porphyry, broken clean
across, from Winwick, in form the same as axes from the Selwood
Barrow, near Stourton and Snowhill, Glos., and one said to have
been found in a barrow near Stonehenge.
Description and illustration of finds from the tumulus to the
east of Highfield Lane, when the tumulus was removed early in
1860, and description of finds, in Nov. 1859, from the tumulus
to the west (on Highfield Farm).
Bronze leaf-shaped blade from Winwick exhibited by Warrington
Museum (through Dr. Robson).
SJ 61389320 & SJ 61429323. 25" A.M. surveys of both the tumuli
have been made.
The two barrows are generally in poor condition, varying between
20.0m to 30.0m in diameter and 0.3m to 0.7m in height.
Published Survey (25") correct. (5)
SJ 6137 9320. Bowl barrow W of Highfield Lane. Scheduled RSM No
22597. An oval earthen mound up to 1.2m high with max dimensions of
37m N-S by 25m E-W. (6)
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