Thorngrove Hundred, Wiltshire, South-West England, British Isles

The Ridgeway Path is an ancient footpath that extends from Knap Hill [Map], on the south of the Avebury Plateau, or The Sanctuary [Map], to Ivinghoe Beacon, Buckinghamshire [Map] - a distance of more than eighty miles following the scarp slopes. From Knap Hill [Map] the Ridgeway Path passes The Sanctuary [Map], Avebury Ridgeway Path [Map] where a path leads to the Avebury Henge East Entrance [Map], Barbury Castle [Map], Liddington Castle [Map], Wayland's Smithy Long Barrow [Map], Uffington Castle and White Horse [Map], Segsbury Camp [Map], Scutchamer Knob, Oxfordshire [Map], Goring, Oxfordshire [Map], Swyncome, Oxfordshire [Map], Chinnor, Oxfordshire [Map], Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire [Map], Boddington Hill Fort, Buckinghamshire [Map], Tring, Hertfordshire [Map], Ivinghoe Beacon, Buckinghamshire [Map].

Around 650BC. Liddington Castle [Map] is a Late Bronze Age Early Iron Age Univallate Hill Fort in Wiltshire at altitude 277m sited on a commanding high point close to the Ridgeway Path covering an area of 30000 square metres. Its first occupation dates to around the 7th Century BC. The earthworks consist of a relatively simple oval bank of timber and earth fronted by a ditch, with opposing causewayed entrances on the east and west sides.

Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine 1924 V42 Pages 49-51. New Long Barrow at Liddington [Map]. O.M. XXIII. N.E. Parish of Liddington. In the left-hand top corner of this sheet the 700 foot contour is tongue-shaped and almost equally divided by the Liddington—Wanborough parish boundary. On the highest point of this ridge is an unrecorded long barrow, now measuring 165 feet long by 42 feet wide, and 5 feet high at the S.end, thelongeraxis being rudely S.E.—N.W. (Exactly 40 degrees E. of S. magnetic). The mound has been much narrowed at its extremities by repeated ploughing and the centre portion has several hollows indicative of former excavation. Towards the 8. end is a large sarsen stone showing above the turf, while at intervals towards the N. are others of smaller size. On the east side of the tumulus isa fence, in digging the post-holes for which (about 1890) three skeletons were found. A few years later a shepherd found another, several bones of which came into the writer's collection and have lately been examined by Professor Parsons, of the University of London, who reports as follows:- "The bones submitted to me by Mr. Passmore were those of an adult male. The only complete bones were a right humerus and a right tibia, which latter measured 360 mm. without the spine. This should give a total height of 164 ¢c.m., or about 5ft. 43in. There is a facet on the front of the lower end of the tibia, known as a -Squatting facet, showing that the individual was in the habit of squatting on the ground. The bones are those of a not particularly muscular individual and do not suggest the clean lines and perfect symmetry which I have learned to associate with Anglo-Saxons. I see nothing to make me think that these bones may not have been those of a Neolithic long barrow man, but the absence of the skull and teeth makes the question a difficult one to decide."²

Note 2. These bones have been presented to St. Thomas's Hospital.