<< Our Photo Pages >> Brinklow Tumulus - Artificial Mound in England in Warwickshire
Submitted by Iain_P on Wednesday, 12 July 2017 Page Views: 7366
Multi-periodSite Name: Brinklow Tumulus Alternative Name: The TumpCountry: England County: Warwickshire Type: Artificial Mound
Nearest Town: Brinklow
Map Ref: SP43877957
Latitude: 52.412379N Longitude: 1.356465W
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
Internal Links:
External Links:
I have visited· I would like to visit
drolaf visited on 28th Nov 2017 - their rating: Cond: 4 Amb: 4 Access: 4 always worth stopping on the way up/down the Fosse way
UnnaturalDisaster visited on 1st Jan 2017 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 4 Access: 4
Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 3.5 Ambience: 4 Access: 4
My mother found a couple of very old postcards with photographs of the "Brinklow Tumulus" (images below) so we set off to see it.
We found the huge mound which the English Heritage site describes as the site of a Norman Motte and bailey castle. The "flat-topped motte has a diameter of 79m at its base and is 15m high. It is surrounded by a ditch, 12m wide which separates the motte from the bailey to the west."
This is clearly not an ancient burial mound, so we were rather confused. To confuse matters even more, there is a smaller mound, but still very impressive in scale, right next to the motte, which is not recognised on the official maps at the site nor on any map that we could find (image below too).
The Historic England site List Number 1011368 mentions it but gives no further detail: "In the northern part of the outer bailey is a small mound with a diameter of 10m".
Pastscape Monument No. 337579 says:
"possibly the original entrance was near the northern corner of the work where a small mound exists upon the rampart. Local tradition in Dugdale's time preserved the memory of a keep here, but no masonry has ever been found."
Presumably this is the second mound we saw, though at around 30 feet in diameter, it is certainly not small!
Further investigation reveals that the motte may have been built on a much earlier monument. This is based on speculation about the origin of the name Brinklow, and the claim that the Roman Road deviates here (and only here) to circumnavigate the mound.
The BBC Website (Domesday Reloaded) says: "Brinklow's ancient mound is thought to be older than Roman times" - Click here for link
.
Pastscape describes the site as a "Medieval motte and bailey, allegedly on the site of earlier earthworks."
The Brinklow Website (http://brinklowvillage.co.uk/history/) has excerpts from “Byrnca’s Low” by Diane Lindsay, including this: The name [Brinklow] is thought to originate from two Old English elements: the personal name Brynca, and the word hlaw meaning "hill" in the sense of tumulus or burial mound. This ancient derivation implies that there was almost certainly a man-made "tump" here long before the Normans exploited the site to build their castle, clearly drawn to it by the strategic nature of the hill as a defensive sighting point, and its position on the Roman Fosse Way.
It is also known that [the Romans] preferred to leave native sacred sites intact, rather than disturb them. Brinklow Tump may well have had some significance to the ancient Coritani people, whose capital was Leicester, but who, it is thought, may well have strayed in isolated small settlements this far southwards; the exact boundaries of their lands are not known. Whether Brinklow Tump is the last resting place of a minor British chieftain, circumvented by the Romans and later owned by an Anglo-Saxon named Brynca, or whether it was indeed, the burial place of Brynca himself, we shall probably never know - to date the mound remains unexcavated.
Here's a link to the video we filmed using a drone. The smaller mound is marked with a red arrow: Click here for video.
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