Passing through the deep forecourt and crawling through the two upright stones supporting
a huge lintel takes you into what is referred to as a 'transepted gallery grave'.
This is a 7 metre passage with a pair of chambers on either side (like the transepts
of a church). The two northern chambers were destroyed in 1821 during quarrying
for road building material when the barrow was thought to be a natural mound.
Subsequent investigations during that year and again in 1854 revealed the skeletal remains
of around twenty-three people. The two southern chambers are however accessible, as is the
end of the passage which is blocked off to form yet another chamber, the whole
construction being of large slabs of stone (including the roof which is made up
of overlapping slabs) infilled with drystone walling. When visiting this site one feels removed from the modern world, despite it standing only a short distance across the fields from the busy B4066 road. This feeling is compounded when sitting by torch-light deep within the solitude and silence of the tomb. The overwhelming impression is not however one of death and finality that one may feel at other similar monuments, but of life, rebirth and continuation The skylarks twitter overhead, as they must have done some 6000 years ago during the Neolithic when the tomb was built, the sun rises and sets and the cycle of life continues.
View looking into the chamber.
Dark clouds gathering above the barrow - view looking west from the path.
Satellite image of Hetty Pegler's Tump.
