One of the great delights of this country is the sense of the bones of the past that always lie just below the surface, in our culture and our landscape. When I started writing my novel Pagans – set in an alternate 21st-century Britain where the Normans had never invaded, polytheistic spirit worship is the closest thing to a state religion, and Britain is still divided along tribal lines – I drew on the bones of Britain, the sense that our past is always just a shovelful of earth away. What follows are a few of the sites across the Cotswolds where you can get a sense of our pagan past.
The ancient Rollright Stones in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds. Photo: David Lyons/Adobe Stock The Rollright Stones, Chipping, Oxfordshire
On the edge of the Cotswold hills, spanning two thousand years of Neolithic and Bronze Age development, stands three stone structures. Popular folklore suggests a King and his army marched over the Cotswolds hills coming head-to-head with a witch. Should the King be incapable of seeing Long Compton over the hill, the Witch would turn them to stone. As the King and his Army approached the hill, a mound rose up and obstructed the view, turning the King into King Stone, the Army into King’s Men stone circle and his Knights into the Whispering Knights burial Chamber.
Thought to be one the earliest funerary monuments in Britain, the oldest of the stones, the Whispering Knights was an Early Neolithic portal dolmen burial chamber, circa 3,800-3,500 BC. It consists of a fallen capstone surrounded by four upright stones. The tomb was excavated and was found to contain Beaker and early Bronze Age pottery in addition to human bone, radiocarbon dated back to c.1700BC.
The King Stone is early to middle Bronze Age, circa 1,500 BC. Likely to have been erected around 1500 BC as a permanent memorial to the burial ground, it was built of stones heaped round a central burial chamber, of which the tip of the capstone is just visibly poking through the grass.
The King’s Men stone circle is a late Neolithic ceremonial stone circle, circa 2,500 BC, containing around seventy stones of oolitic limestone, local to the area. Events are regularly held here for festivals including summer and winter solstices, should you wish to visit.
Visit the Rollright stones: english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/rollright-stones
Owned and managed by the National Trust, Minchinhampton and Rodborough Commons cover 335 hectares of grassland of great archaeological importance. The Iron Age tribesmen of Gloucestershire are said to have made their final stand against the Roman invasion on the Defensive Earthwork of Minchinhampton Common, with survivors eventually fleeing North of this now-ancient site.
Reputed to be the burial place of a Danish leader who fell in battle nearby at Woeful Dane’s Bottom, the Minchinhampton Longstone is a large piece of limestone standing upright in a field, known as Longstone Field, one mile east of Minchinhampton village. Nearby, a fallen standing stone, now built into a drystone wall may have once formed a stone pair with the Longstone. The area has numerous barrows and flints and arrowheads have been found near the Longstone. Discover the many prehistoric field systems and burial mound, and take in the panoramic views of the Stroud Valleys and Severn estuary.
Visit Minchinhampton Common: nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/gloucestershire-cotswolds/minchinhampton-and-rodborough-commons
Thought to be constructed around 3000BC, this Neolithic long barrow featured a false entrance with hidden side chambers to conceal the secret entrances from the outside. Inside the mound were four burial chambers. During the 19th-century, excavators reported finding the remains of six skeletons who are thought to be early Bronze Age interments under the false entrance, two buried males and two females with animal bones and flint artefacts in the south-eastern chamber, twelve burials in the north-eastern chamber, fourteen in the western chamber, and one in the southern chamber.
Visit Belas Knap: english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/belas-knap-long-barrow
An early Iron Age round barrow, also known as Scutchamer Knob or ‘Scotchman’s Knob,’ on the Ridgeway National Trail at East Hendred, now in Oxfordshire but formerly in Berkshire. Recorded as the place where King Edwin of Northumbria killed Cwichelm of Wessex in AD636 and long thought to be Cwichelm’s burial place, although the barrow has been excavated several times with no serious finds – perhaps due to having already been broken into in the belief it contained treasure.
Visit Scutchamer Knob: nationaltrail.co.uk/en_GB/attraction/scutchamer-knob-round-barrow
Home to a monument that marks the point where the three shires (Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Somerset) meet between Batheaston and Colerne in Wiltshire. It is a Neolithic burial chamber; the stones stand at two meters high and one meter wide and were used as the model for the Three Farthings Stones in JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
Surrounded by breathtaking scenery in the rolling Cotswold Hills sits St Kenelm’s Well. Said to have been slain by his sister’s lover so she could rule in his stead as Queen, the body of St Kenelm – a prince from the Kingdom of Mercia – was discovered. The site has drawn pilgrims since the ninth century.
Legend says a white dove dropped an Anglo-Saxon letter in St Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, describing where the saint’s body lay. Once his body was removed to be buried in Winchcombe, the holy spring appeared, becoming a site for holy water.
Visit St Kenelm’s Well: winchcombewelcomeswalkers.com/walks/self-guided-walks/st-kenelms-well
www.waterstones.com/book/pagans/james-alistair-henry/2928377311766
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