Description

Content summary: 29 June 1802 : copy of a letter from William Cunnington to Mr B L Lambert – on his return home from Stonehenge where he had been digging a barrow with Mr Coxe, was surprised to find a large string of beads which had been taken out of the large barrow on Upton Downs. He describes the barrow and says that it was discovered by a labourer digging for flints for the Turnpike road – he had hoped to find treasure but found nothing but burnt bones & the beads. He had made a deep trench 11 feet deep and found a circular cist with burnt human bones & the 48 beads – 16 were green and blue glass in 'long pieces notched between, so as to resemble a string of beads, 5 were of Canal Coal or Jet, & the remaining 27 were of red amber. Mr Crocker has made an exact drawing of them. WmC thinks it was the 'tomb of some illustrious female.'

Summary: 29 June 1802 : copy of a letter from William Cunnington to Mr B L Lambert – on his return home from Stonehenge where he had been digging a barrow with Mr Coxe, was surprised to find a large string of beads which had been taken out of the large barrow on Upton Downs. He describes the barrow and says that it was discovered by a labourer digging for flints for the Turnpike road – he had hoped to find treasure but found nothing but burnt bones & the beads. He had made a deep trench 11 feet deep and found a circular cist with burnt human bones & the 48 beads – 16 were green and blue glass in 'long pieces notched between, so as to resemble a string of beads, 5 were of Canal Coal or Jet, & the remaining 27 were of red amber. Mr Crocker has made an exact drawing of them. WmC thinks it was the 'tomb of some illustrious female.'