Journal of Proceedings. cciii
which has scarcely ever occurred during our researches in other parts of
the county. Can we suppose that the Britons entertained the same
ideas as the Greeks and Romans, who erected to the memory of those
whose bodies could not be found a cenotaphium, from the superstitious
notion that the soul could not rest unless deposited in a tomb."
It is well known that Saxon cemeteries were not unfrequently placed
on the site of older burial grounds, and such may have been the case at
Saffron Walden. Or the makers of the Saxon graves may also have
excavated the circular hollows and cylindrical shaft, for purposes akin
to those suggested by Sir Richard Colt Hoare or the author of Murray's
Handbook for Wiltshire, in the case of the evidently sepulchral hollows
of that county. My object in these remarks is simply to point out that
Mr. H. Ecroyd Smith in his otherwise valuable paper has brought
forward nothing that can be called evidence in favour of his own views
with regard to these curious hollows ; while he has strangely neglected,
in treating of the peculiarities of an ancient chalk cemetery, to consider
the facts bearing upon his subject furnished by the most famous ancient
burial ground in England, the chalk plateau of Salisbury Plain.
In confirmation of the above remarks, it may be well to give some
extracts from Canon Green well's 'British Barrows,' in which similar
pits to those mentioned by Mr. Ecroyd Smith are noticed. On page 137,
in an account of a barrow in the East Riding of Yorkshire, in the parish
of Langton, we read :—
" Just behind the head was a circular hole 2 feet deep and 3 feet
in diameter, filled in with sand ; and close by the feet was a similar
hole, but 6 inches deeper, and filled in with some broken pieces of stone
in addition to the sand."
In a note on page 137 we read :—
" It will be noticed in the account of the long barrows that circular
and oval holes were met with in some of them. The same has been
found to be the case in the long barrows of the south-west of England.
In the sequel it will be seen that they are by no means uncommon in
the round barrows of the (chalk) wolds, and the same feature was
remarked by Sir Richard Colt Hoare in at least one instance in
Wiltshire."
In an account of a barrow in the parish of Kirkby Grindalyth
(Duggleby Wold) we read that the barrow was 71 feet in diameter and
fi feet high. Twenty-five feet south of the centre was an oblong hollow
with rounded ends excavated in the chalk, 6 feet by 43/4 feet and 21/2 feet
deep, and having a direction south-west by north-east. Like nearly all
these enigmatical holes it contained nothing besides the filling-in of earth
and clay. Twelve feet south of the centre there was another hole 2
feet in diameter and 11/2 feet deep, containing, like the larger one,
nothing more than the filling-in.
On page 201-203, Parish of Langtoft. Here was a barrow with no less
than six circular holes, the deepest being 3 feet deep, the others about
2 feet, except one, which was 11 inches. There were two bodies in the