Experiencing Kent's Neolithic long Barrows

A couple of weeks ago I was re-visiting Shrub's Wood Barrow (the site of our ongoing AONB project for university), and I took the opportunity to also visit the other three long barrows of Kent: The Countless Stones near Kit's Cotty, Coldrum Long Barrow, and Addington Long Barrow (this last one does not have a photograph here as it requires payment to be visited and is unimpressive, existing in a restricted site with a road running through it's middle).

The visits proved well worth my while, and helped largely to inform me of the attitude taken by the relevant authorities towards the celebration and upkeep of these ancient and internationally important monuments.

Addington had a road put through it by the local council in the fifties to discourage pagan worship rituals and is really just a mess split behind two fences with sheep grazing it.

The Countless Stones were unimpressive in themselves. Simply a jumble of large sarson stones with slight remnants of neolithic markings on their faces. But a lot had been done to take care of them, and the owners of the land along with English Heritage have placed a black wrought iron palisade fence around the outside to mark it out and protect it. There is also evidence that the grass within the fenceline is regularly mown, and a small information board sits at the entrance. It is, however, obvious that the location of the stones, and the neighbouring Dolmen Kit's Cotty were in accordance with most of these sites and were placed in a dominant position over the landscape, at a high point and commanding good views. Interestingly not far from the Countless Stones, perhaps 200m, there were three more large stones that appeared to be sarsons, being used as boundary markers to a junction of three fields, so perhaps they too were once part of the group of stones that it was said of that 'no two men could count them and achieve the same result'.

Finally, Coldrum Long Barrow was by far the grandest of the sites to visit. Commanding a spectacular view across a long vale, it stood at about thirty feet high with a grand entrance framed by three giant sarsons. This site is owned by the National Trust, and it is obvious that they have invested some thought in how to commemorate the site. It has a very modest but locally accurate split pail beech fence running around it with simple steps cut into the embankment from whence to gain the summit, and a beautiful beech hedge fronting it onto the adjacent farm lane. It also has two very detailed plaques with a great deal of illustrated information and an artists impression of the barrow in it's former glory.

We arrived first thing in the morning with a feint distant mist and the sun peaking in perfect alignment with the barrow's head stones. It was at this moment that I really felt the full significance of the alignment of these monuments and appreciated the spectacle all the better for my positioning (also in alignment and facing the east). I really felt that this experience helped justify in my mind my proposals for Shrub's Wood Barrow, which also runs in east - west alignment but is currently obscured from the sun until around 10 or 11am when it crests the dense woodland that surrounds the barrow.