Spellow Hills, looking east across the field from the A16
The
badly damaged long
barrow of Spellow Hills, or at it is sometimes known 'Hills of the Slain'
stands at a height of 90 metres above sea-level on the side of a south facing
valley. It is said that because of the damage, possibly caused by people
digging for treasure or the collapse of an underlying wooden mortuary structure,
that William
Stukeley mistakenly thought the mound to be a line of round
barrows. Since then it has been further damaged and has lost around
12 metres from its northern end due to the ravages of the plough. Its original
measurements would have been 56 metres in length and about 12 metres wide,
and it still reaches a height of around 2 metres at its southern end. Aerial
photographs have revealed that it was enclosed by an elongated oval ditch,
the whole structure lying in a south-southwest to north-northwest orientation
which unlike other Neolithic
long barrows in Lincolnshire, traverses, rather than follows the contours
of the landscape. Spellow Hills remains officially unexcavated although
the plan above shows that it appears to have been the attention of antiquarian
investigation or those in search of buried treasure, a theory supported
by stories of many bones being found scattered around the vicinity of the
barrow in the past.There is no access to the barrow, but it can be seen across the fields on the left of the A16 from Partney to the circle at Ulceby cross. It is some distance away though and it can be difficult to see if the field is under crop.
