A Disquisition on the Lows or Barrows in the Peak of Derbyshire, particularly that capital British Monument called Arbelows [Map]. By the Rev. Mr. Pegge (age 80).

I observe next, that, in the Peak, they appropriate the termination low to those tumuli, which, in other parts of England, are called barrows, and suppose them to be places of sepulture. This is the notion of the common people, and they are undoubtedly such; for human bones have been found in many of them. Upon which ground alone, one may justly raise a question, whether all the villages and hamlets that present us with this word in the compolition of their names had not originally some tumulus or place of sepulture near them, though by cultivation, or other accidental causes, the low may now disappear. At many of the places fo denominated, the barrows are actually still remaining, as here at Arbour-Lows, &c.ⁱ, whence it is but reasonable to conclude, that lows of the same kind were once existing at all the places of the like termination.

Note i. Highlow, Blakelow, Ellocklow, Gallowlow, Hakeslow, Minninglow, Pidallow, Roundlow, Snipperlow, Stanhoplow, Whitelow, &c.

Be this as it may, the lows, 2ndly, are generally round. Indeed they are mostly so everywhere^p, though there are some few instances of an oblong-form, as what is called Julaberr's Grave at Chilham in Kent^q, and another large barrow on Wye Downs, which, though upon a much larger scale, are not unlike our common graves^r. Barrows, I presume, almost naturally would take, if they mounted to any considerable elevation, a circular figure; for suppofing an human body of six feet laid upon the ground, and an agger of either earth or stones accumulated upon it to any height, the appearance at last will be nearly circular, and I may add, conical; by which, however, I do not mean to insinuate they may not often be flat at top, or concave like a bason, but only that the original construction was conical, and these other appearances accidental; flatness arising since, from time and weather, or perhaps in some cases from the plough; and concavity being caused by much the same fortuitous circumstances assisted by the known sinking and depression of a factitious mount of mold or earth; the same dishing may also happen, I conceive, even to a stone low.

Note p. Harris's Hist. of Kent, p. 137. Wormii, Mon. Dan. p. 33.

Note q. Harris's Hist. of Kent, p. 76.

Note r. See also Wormius, p. 37.

3dly. They are of various sizes and dimensions. We have them from sixty yards in circumference at the base down to four or five, and the presumption is, that the larger the barrow the greater was the dignity of the person interred. This, however, may be pronounced with some assurance, that the more august was the solemnity of the interment, either the greater pains were taken, or the more hands employed, which leads me to observe, that how the most stupendous of them for magnitude were compiled is not difficult to conceive, when one reflects, that sometimes a whole army were engaged in the service^s, and that for many days together^t.

Note s. Wormii Mon. Dan. p. 39,

Note t. Wormius, ibid.

4thly, As to the fubftance of our lows, they are fometimes compofed of fmall loofe ffones, rudely piled on heaps, without any order; others confift of the like ftones, but are covered with earth or turf^u, which in other cafes may have accrued through length of time. Laftly, Some are entirely of earth or mold^w.

Note u. Wormius, p. 43.

Note w. Such there were very anciently. Virgil, Æn. XI. 550. Tacitus, Annal. I. cap. 62. Dugd. Warw. p. 4.

5th. The greater stone-lows have sometimes smaller ones of the same kind scattered irregularly above them, as may be seen on Leam-Moor, Highlow-Moor, and Offerton-Moor^x.

Note x. See Wormius, p. 41.

6th. Though such a multitude of lows are remaining, and especially in the Peak^y, where they abound most, by reason that agriculture having taken but little place on the hills and moors; things continue there more in their ancient state, and have been less disturbed than in Scarsdale, or the other hundreds, where the lands have been more cultivated^z; yet many have been destroyed by the neighbouring inhabitants; those which consisted of grit-stones having some been totally, and others in part, carried away, to make walls^a. The materials of one of Robin Hood's Pricks, as they are called, was used in making the turnpike road leading from Sheffield to Grindleford-Bridge. So again, where the body of the low has been of lime-stone, it has been partly carried off by the farmers or grafters for making lime, as has been the case at Stanhope-Low, and Mining-Low. Some lows, moreover, have been disturbed through curiosity, or avarice; as when they have been rummaged and fought into from a hope of finding antiquities, or by others in expectation of meeting with hidden treasure. There are instances, lastly, where rabbits having burrowed in lows, a great disordering of the stones has ensued from those who have gone to hunt them, and dig them out. Sir Henry Spelman observes, that it is from the lows, or barrows, the 'cuniculorum oculamenta et habitacula Berries dicimus^b.'

Note y. There are a great number of fmall ones on Leam-Moor, befides eight large ones.

Note z. See Dugd. V arw. p. 3. Plott, Oxfordsh. c. x. and Staffordsh. c. x.

Note a. A gentleman assured me, he himself had taken one entirely away, for that purpose, from Leam-Moor.

Note b. Sir H. Spelman's Gloss. v. Bergium.

7th. To enquire next into the use, or meaning of the lows. It cannot be doubted, after the various discoveries that have been made by digging and searching into them, that they are all places of sepulture, bones, ashes, urns, &c. paving been actually found in many of them^c; besides, kist-vaens, and stone coffins, have been discovered in them^d. It may be necessary, however, here to insert the following precaution. There have been lead mines worked in the Peak from remote antiquity; so that all the tumuli there found may not be lows, or places of interment, but some of them only heaps of rubbish ejected from the mine. A careful observer, nevertheless, will easily distinguish a low from a grove-hillock, as they call it; as the component subftance of a low is always very different, and there is rarely any mine near hand. The caution, however, may be useful to strangers, who visit the country for the sake of contemplating the lows. The stone lows cannot possibly be mistaken.

Note c. Four urns were found in Robin Hood's Prick abovementioned, one in a low on Leam-Moor. See Camden, col. 763. 425. note g below.

Note d. As in Aldwark-Moor. See Camden, col. 423,

8th. But now as these tumuli, or modes of interment, were, common to all countries^e, and Britons, Romans, Saxons and Danes, have all, in their order, frequented the Peak of Derbyshiire, and have there been settled, the principal difficulty is to determine to which of those nations our numerous peakish lows belong. For my part, I incline to believe, they may have appertained not to any one particular, but to all those several people.

First, some are British, for kist-vaens have been found in many of them^f; and besides, these have no regard to roads, as Roman tumuli would have, but are disperfed on moors, in various parts of the country, and mostly placed on eminences. In some of them again, such valuables have been found as are known to have been peculiar to the Britons; rings, beads, &c.^g. Where therefore such circumstances as these are attendant, and the low is withal very large, and on some eminence, one may rationally conclude it to be British.

Note f. See above, art. 7.

Note g. In a stone low on Stanton Moor, which has been much rifled, not only bones were found, but a large bead of blue glass with orifices not larger than the tip of a tobacco-pipe. Some rings and beads were found in a low on Leam-Moor by Mr. Jonathan Oxley.

2nd. As lows, or barrows, were used by the Romans, if any appear near their roads (as on the Bath-way, from Brough to Buxton), and Roman coins, urns, or any implements acknowledged to belong to that people, are discovered in the body of the low, such low may reasonable be prefumed to be of Roman erection.

3. The Saxons, on their coming into these parts about A.D. 584, may with a great degree of probability be supposed to bring this mode of interment along with them from their own country; however, upon their establishment here, they would naturally learn and adopt it from the inhabitants of Mercia, whether Britons or Romans. And therefore there is valid reason to imagine, that our lows may some of them be the handy works of this nation, before its conversion to the Christian faith.

Lastly, many of the lows are probably of Danish original. This people flourished long in these parts, and Mr. Hearne says, 'It was the common way of burial with the Danes to raise tumuli upon the bodies^h.' Brompton above will testify that this was done for Hubba, insomuch that many of our lows are probably Danish, and those perhaps more especially, which have a circle of stones surrounding their base; this being a particular mode in Denmarkⁱ.

Note h. Hearne, in Sir John Spelman's Life of Alfred, p. 61. See also Wormii Mon. Dan. p. 33, alibi.

Note i. Wormii Mon. Dan. p. 35.

It would certainly be a very desirable thing, if one could be able, upon first view, to appropriate a low to its right nation; but this, it seems, as appears from the above short state of these matters, is not to be done, and therefore there can be no certainty, without prying into and examining the bowels and contents of them, and even that is hardly sufficient in all cases.

Having thus dispatched what I had to say on our lows in general, I proceed now more particularly to speak of Arbour-Lows, as being by far the most magnificent and capital Druidical remain of any we have in Derbyshire, not to lay in all this part of England. It may be considered as confining of two distinct articles, the lows and the temple as I shall call it at present. I shall take the lows first, as they denominate the whole of the group.

The first low [Gib Hill Barrow [Map]] is on your right hand, if you are travelling southward. It is a large mount of earth, nearly round, of about eighteen feet diameter at the top, where there is a great hollow in the middle, in form of a bason, as is common^p. It is twenty-two yards diameter at the base. The original height to the top five yards two feet height on June 17, 1782, before it was opened three yards two feet. On the south side there is a low rampire of earth with several breaks in it, running across the field (at the distance of about seventy yards from the low) from the wall on the west, and under the wall on the east. These walls are plainly of modern erection; and whereas on the west side of that western wall no traces of the rampire are to be found, nor any place where it turned and being but an insignificant thing, it probably is of a late date too. However, it passes quite to the foot of that great rampire which environs the temple, N° 1. Pl. IX.

The other low [Arbor Low Henge Barrow [Map]] stands on the right hand of the southern entrance into the area of the temple^q. It stands upon the grand rampire, which is a very extraordinary position, and is not above three or four yards removed from the said entrance. This again is a considerable pile of earth, nearly as big as the former, and with the like hollow, or bason, in the area of its top, only that the water which was lodged in it, has, from time to time, run over the interior edge next the fosse, and worn it away. It is natural to imagine, that this low, so singularly situated on the rampire of the temple, must have been of a later conftrusion than the temple itself.

Note q. See the plate.

Having done with the lows, I come to the temple [Arbor Low Henge and Stone Circle [Map]]. First, this is surrounded with a great circular rampire, measuring by its inward slope, seven yards high, and by the outward five. The fosse, which is within, and not on the outside of the rampire, is five yards over in the bottom.

2. The inclosed area is a circular flat of fifty-eight yards diameter, and has been encompassed by thirty-two very large stones, or more, of lime-stone, or grey-marble, placed circularly. The stones formerly stood on end, two and two together, which is very particular, and different, I think, from any other stone circle now known; however, they all lie flat now, and are some of them so much broken by their fall, that it requires some attention in observing and numbering them; for the fragments are not only some bigger than others, as would necessarily happen, but sometimes lie at a small distance from the principal or larger pieces, to which they respectively belonged. However that they stood in pairs at first, is very obvious, and it is probable they were brought, as there is no quarry nearer, from Fairdale or Ricklow Dale which is very near; for they are apparently the same sort of stone, but blanched by the weather.

3. The two entrances into the temple, nine yards each, are nearly south and north, but inclining to the south west and north east, and, as was observed, the slight rampire from the other low comes up to the southern entrance. The entrances are level, being banks of earth across the fosse (the earth in these places having never been dug away), and they both of them had, on each hand, one of the stone pillars abovementioned, between which you entered into the grand area. I call them pillars now, though they are flat stones, because, as has been already noted, they stood on end, and were so lofty.

4. In the area lies one very large stone four yards one foot long, two yards two foot wide, perhaps not less than three or four ton weight. There is another to the north of it, and a third on the east side, which appears to have been much broken. If ever there was a fourth on the west side it is now gone.

The Danes were much in the same predicament with the Saxons. At first, they were meer rovers, and even at that time, Christianity was the religion professed in the country, to which they were soon converted. They never were so powerful, or so far settled, as to accomplish such a noble work as Arbour-lows till their conversion; and after that, they never would think of attempting it.

The Britons then are the only people, to whom with any colour of reason one can think of ascribing this august monument; and indeed it has the air and aspect of very remote antiquity. They had arts and methods of elevating stones even of superior weight and dimenfions to those^t, and had also accomplished works, as we have reason to think, of far greater exertion. But though we adjudge the main body of this monument to the Britons, yet the lows, which we have made a distinct branch, do not so certainly belong to them. They appear superior in time to the temple, as stated above, but nevertheless they may be theirs; on the other hand, they may be Roman or Saxon or Danish, insomuch that at present we dare not presume to decide upon a point, which probably will be more satisfactorily determined by the contents of the lows, if ever hereafter they may happen to be opened.

Note t. Dr. Borlase, p. 157.