Harrold Barrows

These revealing aerial photos were taken over my village during the 1960s. They show the cropmarks of four burial mound ring ditches in Harrold, Bedfordshire.

Archaeology reports indicate that there were up to 18 barrows discovered when gravel extraction took place during the 1950s, located at what is now Meadway, Harewelle, and the Country Park. The topsoil was removed, which is when the rings became visible, revealing skeletons and associated burial objects, many of which are now in The Higgins Museum, Bedford.

The barrows were Neolithic but subsequently used for burials during the Bronze Age and Iron Age, and even a later Anglo Saxon cemetery was located here, demonstrating the tendency for burial sites to be reused, in particular by the elite classes to show their long standing hereditary claims on a piece of land. It was common during the early Anglo Saxon period for burial mounds to be exploited as status symbols, even though these claims were fictional and appropriated to secure local power.

Little historic potency survives at these sites today, with all of the mounds now under a housing estate and a few in the Country Park. However, armed with coordinates and a GPS, it was possible to locate the space where a few of them would have been, but I thankfully stopped short of prowling through residents' back gardens.

I'm a firm believer that knowing these details about the places we live undoubtedly deepens our relationship with where we call home. For me, I feel connected to my ancient neighbours who also inhabited the same landscape as me. I share in and contribute to the stories that continue to play out on a small plateau next to a little bend of the River Great Ouse in Bedfordshire.