Waylands Smithy

Took a walk along the ridgeway from Uffington castle last weekend to one of my favourite neolithic monuments after Avebury, Waylands Smithy. The burial chamber as it stands today is dated 3500BC, but excavations have shown an earlier, much smaller burial chamber pre-dates this.


The entrance was originally dominated by 6 larger sarcen stones, 2 of which are sadly missing today. These things are huge!


Whilst the chambers inside of the barrow, laid out in the form of a crucifix, are barely large enough to crawl into. The mound itself stretches some distance, originally flanked by 2 ditches (thought to have been dug out to create the mound itself), the ditches are long gone, but the stones outlining the edge of the mound remain to this day.

More photo's to come... stay tuned.