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All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
Dolmens of Ireland is in Prehistory.
The Dolmens of Ireland, Their Distribution, Structural Characteristics, and Affinities in other Countries; Together with the Folk-Lore Attaching to them; Supplemented by considerations on the Anthropology, Ethnology, And Traditions of the Irish People. With four maps, and eight hundred Illustrations, including two coloured plates. By William Copeland Borlase, M.A., Late President of The Royal Institution of Cornwall, and one of the Vice-Presidents of The Society of Antiquaries of London; Barrister at Law; In Three Volumes. 1897.
Books, Prehistory, Dolmens of Ireland Volume 2
The Uley tumulus is very similar in its internal structural arrangement to that at Cwm Park. In each case there are four cells, two being placed on either side of the passage. The mound measures 120 feet long, 85 feet wide, and 10 feet high. The chamber is 22 feet long, 4½ feet wide, and 5 feet high. As at Cwm Park, a confused mass of unburnt bones was found.
The West-Kennet example is a mound measuring 336 feet long by 75 feet wide at its broadest part. In common with that at New Grange, one of the Clava cairns, and others, it was originally surrounded by a peristyle, as is shown in the curious drawing by Aubrey in 1665 (Fig. 424). The passage is 15 feet long by 3 feet 6 ins. wide, and leads to a chamber 8 feet long by 9 ins. wide. Dr. Thurnam found here six original interments under a stratum of black, sooty, greasy matter, 3 to 9 ins. thick. The bones were not burnt, and, in the case of two of the skulls, fractures had been made, which the eminent craniologist who explored the chamber considered to have been the cause of death, and to have been purposely inflicted by human agency. Other skulls were found entire. Pieces of coarse black pottery were also present in remarkable quantities. No vessels were found whole, but there were fragments of fifty at least, piled together in corners. Flint implements, chippings, and cores accompanied these remains, but nothing of metal.
In point of plan and construction, the West-Kennet monument may be said to be identical with that of the Hunengrab of Naschendorf in Mecklenburg1. Sir John Lubbock has remarked the resemblance of the former to one in the island of Moen, and it may be compared also with that known by the name of "Harold Hildetand's Tomb" at Lethra, P in Zeeland. In these Scandnavian examples the bones are unburnt, as has also been found to be the case in the very similar Hunebedden of Mecklenburg, Hanover, and Drenthe.
Note 1. Schroter and Lisch, "Friderico-Francisceuin," Leipzig (1824), pi. xxxvi. Vide infra.
Two varieties of these structures in England remain to be noticed, each of which has its counterpart in respect of its characteristic feature among the chambered tumuli of Scotland and Ireland. The first variety is the cruciform arrangement of the chambers or cells, of which in Ireland we have examples at New Grange, Loughcrew, and in the island of Achill; and of which the Orkney Islands afford us so notable an example in that of Maeshowe (Fig. 427)1, a structure, by the way, the ground-plan of which recalls those of the Siva temples of India.
The English example of this cruciform arrangement meets us in the case of no less noteworthy a monument than that called "Weyland Smith's Cave [Map]," in the county of Berkshire, a plan of which I have given above (Fig. 426).