Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/217

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Barrows on Sway Common and Bratley Plain.

Britons against their invaders. Nearer Lymington, too, stands Buckland Rings,[1] a Roman camp, with its south and north sides still nearly perfect, to which, perhaps, Natan-Leod fell back from Calshot.

All this, however, must be accepted as mere conjecture. A more critical examination of these barrows is still wanting.

Close to them, however, lies Latchmoor or Lichmoor Pond, the moor of corpses, a name which we meet again a little to the westward in Latchmoor Water, which flows by Ashley Common. The words are noticeable, and in connection with Darrat's (Dane-rout) stream, which is also not far distant, may point to a very different invasion.[2]

And now we will pass to the barrows which I have opened. The first are situated on Bratley Plain, as the name shows, a wide heath, marked only by a few hollies and the undulations of the scattered mounds. The largest barrow lies close to the sixth


  1. This camp was probably, since coins of Claudius have been found, occupied by Vespasian, when he conquered the Isle of Wight. A bronze celt was found here some eighty years ago, and came into the possession of Warner. Others have been discovered, in great quantities, in various parts of the Forest, two of which are engraved in Archæologia, vol. v., plate viii., figs. 9 and 10. Brander, too, the well-known antiquary, found others at Hinton, on the west border of the Forest (Archæologia, vol. v. p. 115). Mr. Drayson has also picked up two flint knives at Eyeworth, which are figured, showing both the under and upper surfaces, at p. 206.
  2. As in Derbyshire all barrows are marked by the terminal low—hlæw, a grave, so in the Forest they seem particularized by a reference to the Old-English lie. Thus, near the Beaulieu barrows we find Lytton Copse and Common, and at the west end of the Forest, not far from Amberwood, meet another Latchmoor. I may notice that just outside the Forest, in Darrat's Lane—a word which often occurs—we find a place, near some mounds, called "Brands," equivalent to the "Brund" of Derbyshire, and having reference to the burning funeral pyre. (See Bateman's Ten Years' Diggings, Appendix, p. 290.)
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