Fig. 19. The Toot Hill, Little Coates, Lincolnshire. View from the North-Eastern boundary. The basal portion of the hill is entirely natural, and is now being excavated for sand. The upper portion, surmounted by the tree, has been modified artificially.
describing. One characteristic is the great size, as compared with barrows and mottes, and the other is the irregularity of shape, where the mound has been untouched by man. The writer’s notebook contains an account of a visit to the Toot Hill at Little Coates, near Grimsby, in December, 1903. The church of Little Coates, which is probably of early foundation, though only the featureless chancel arch of the present building dates before the Perpendicular Period, is about one-third of a mile distant. This Toot Hill ([Fig. 19]) is a huge mound with an irregular ground plan, but the upper portion has an elliptical contour. It is composed chiefly of sand and sandy clays, which seem to belong to the late Glacial Period. A sand pit which was being worked at the base of one side of the hill, yielded broken and comminuted specimens of Ostrea, Tellina, and other marine shells. Towards the summit, however, there were undoubted signs of man’s work. A slight fall of snow had rendered discernible a shallow trench which encompassed the hill slope. One could also pick out, near the base, the radial ridges and furrows of some old-time plough, but even these had not quite obliterated the trench. A few small flint flakes were detected on a patch bare of turf. One suspects that this hill served both as a beacon and a watch-tower when the Humber and the North Sea were nearer the spot, and when Grimsby was represented by a string of islets lying amid the waters of a lagoon. This condition of the landscape is known to have prevailed during the early historic period. The capping of the mound covers, mayhap, the dust of more than one celebrity. Bones and earthenware were found at, or near, this spot a century ago, and soon after the visit just described skeletons were dug up in the sand pit. The ultimate fate of these skeletons, and their determinations, could not be ascertained. Perchance this toot-hill will remind the visitor of the cremation of Beowulf, and the mound which “the Weders people wrought on the hill,” after the funeral-pyre which they had kindled had ceased to glow. We learn that the lamenting warriors raised
“A howe on the lithe (=body), that was high and broad,
Unto the wave-farers wide to be seen,
Then it they betimbered in time of ten days,
The battle-strong’s beacon.”
We pause for a moment to recapitulate briefly our records and results. Wherever a mound which is intimately associated with a church is of Norman or post-Norman construction, it tells of feudal convenience and the centralization of business; perhaps, too, of religious expediency, with more than a hint of the secular use of the church. In a lesser degree, this argument of convenience applies also to the Saxon nobles. One of the means by which a ceorl could secure thegn-right, was by building a church, and if he followed this method, it is probable he would prefer to erect the church near his dwelling. Again, the connection of churches with pre-Norman moot-hills or toot-hills, whether these were “blind” mounds or grave-knolls, suggests the deliberate choice of sites already famous. And if it be granted that the Norman motte had, even by exception, a rudimentary origin in the Saxon period, reasoned selection is again indicated. A mound which was the seat of judicial and legislative assemblies would be so indissolubly linked with the religious ceremonies of the community or tribe, that the site of the future church may be said to have been almost predetermined.
The mounds which form our last series are the grave-hills or barrows. These features, when found near Christian places of worship, form such a critical test of intentional selection, that each record should be closely scanned. British examples of the barrow and the church as neighbours are not very abundant. In parts of the Continent, however, the records are so numerous and so obvious that they crave a more lenient inspection. Few European countries have been overrun by the invader during the last fifteen hundred years to the same degree as Britain. Churches have been pulled down and rebuilt, or they have been fired and deserted, and, long afterwards, restored. The surrounding churchyards have been trenched and dug far more intensively than the treasure-field of Aesop’s fable. The spade has disturbed and distributed flints and shards, and any other primitive relics have been broken and scattered so many times that their original positions are unknown. Levelling has followed inequality, and, in some cases, the graveyard has been enlarged and a secondary dispersal of soil has been made. (The observations on burial shards in Chapter VII. should be read in this connection.)
We will start with some of the less-authenticated examples first. A mound, long thought to be a barrow, but now considered to be quite natural, stands near Woodnesborough church, Sandwich, Kent. No trenching of the mound, however, has been recorded. The late Mr T. W. Shore recorded several instances of churchyard barrows from Hampshire, but I am not aware that the true character of these particular mounds has ever been investigated. Thus, at Corhampton, a church of Saxon foundation is actually built on a mound, while at Cheriton, the church is not only placed on a hillock, but it is also adjacent to a permanent spring[204]. This collocation of church and spring, it may be remarked, will greet us continually. In the churchyard of Ogbourne Maisey, Wiltshire, a fine “tumulus” stands close to the river[205], and Mr F. J. Bennett, who records this example, informs me that there was formerly another mound in Allington churchyard, Kent. This last example, one is disposed to think, may have been an outpost of Allington Castle.
The next mound which deserves attention is situated just outside the North wall of the churchyard of Over Worton, Oxfordshire. It is a round hillock, and has a circumference of 198 feet. Except that it is tree-clad, it has the characteristics of the other round barrows of the district. The assertion has been made that the mound merely represents a heap of rubbish removed from the churchyard, but a living witness, whose memory covers the date assigned to its construction, denies this story, and states that the hillock was there previously[206].
