Tumulus de la Butte, Vierville, Manche, N 49.359, W 001.246
Attempted visits Friday, 19 November 2004 and Tuesday 23 November 2004.
Said to be an exceptional tumulus dating from the middle Neolithic, and with many finds of bones weapons and bronze medals, it was thoroughly excavated in 1975. The tumulus consisted of four juxtaposed monuments, a central circular cairn containing a chamber opening to the outside via an entrance corridor. Two further structures of unknown function, symmetrically positioned at the north and the south named by the archaeologist as antennas, and an extension of the cairn in southern antenna containing a second chamber.
Try as I might, early in the morning on the way to my sisters from the ferry, by driving up and down every lane and farm track around the village, I couldn’t find any sign of this, despite it being highlighted as a tourist place on the IGN maps. I asked a chap passing on his way to work on a bike if he knew anything of it with no luck, and also an old couple herding cows from one field to another, who said they had lived there all their lives but had also never heard of it. They seemed very intrigued as to what an Englishman was doing in their village asking for a monument and pointing at something on a map. It must have made their day, but it didn’t help me in any way. After taking a last guess and driving half a mile up a muddy track to the top of a nearby hill, and walking round all the woodland on the top, all I could find was a couple of interested donkeys. An hour had now gone by, and it was time to get on. Not much of a tourist attraction !
Further investigation using more detailed local maps showed the tumulus positioned right opposite the road junction by the church. If accurate, this meant that the tumulus was either in the garden of a large house, or in a nearby farmyard. Passing near by the site on the way back to the ferry, I stopped off for another look round, this time knowing where to look. There was absolutely no sign of anything to be seen in any farmyards unless it has been covered with either a barn or a dungheap. This left the only place for it to be as in the walled in garden of the large house pictured, which had absolutely no places to look through. I could find nobody around to ask, and didn’t want to just go and call at a perhaps random private house, so had to give up again. It wouldn’t surprise me if it is positioned somewhere under the trees to be seen in the walled garden.
Once home, lots of painstaking research on the internet has revealed nothing more than that it is on private land. Its gotta be in that walled garden. Or is it ?
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road