The site originally started out during the Neolithic as a wooden mortuary structure with a stone floor surrounded by sarsen boulders and chalk which contained 14 bodies. Shortly after, sometime around 2800 BC, the large 55 metre long earth mound, sarsen kerb and outlying ditches were added. The south entrance of the tomb was blocked by 6 large sarsens, of which only 4 stones, each over 3 metres high remain. A 6 metre passage leads through an antechamber into a burial chamber that contained 8 bodies, including a child, although no grave goods were found. There are many legends attached to this site that centre around the Anglo-Saxon Weland, or in the Norse - Volund, that date back over a thousand years. This account was recorded in 1738 by the antiquary Francis Wise -
'At this place lived formerly an Invisible Smith, and if a traveller's Horse had lost a Shoe upon the road, he had no more to do than to bring the Horse to this place with a piece of money, and leaving both there for some little time, he might come again and find the money gone, but the Horse new shod'.
Front and side view showing some of the kerb stones running along the sides of the barrow
Plan of Wayland's Smithy barrow
View of the chamber
