Text this colour is a link for Members only. Support us by becoming a Member for only £3 a month by joining our 'Buy Me A Coffee page'; Membership gives you access to all content and removes ads.
Text this colour links to Pages. Text this colour links to Family Trees. Place the mouse over images to see a larger image. Click on paintings to see the painter's Biography Page. Mouse over links for a preview. Move the mouse off the painting or link to close the popup.
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.
Tinkinswood Burial Chamber is in St Nicholas, Glamorganshire, Prehistoric Wales Neolithic Burials.
Book of South Wales. Some Druidical antiquities which are well worth visiting exist in the parish of St. Nicholas, a small village on the road to Cowbridge, six miles from Cardiff. Walk down the lane to the left leading to Duffryn House (the seat of Mr. Bruce Pryce), for about half a mile, then enquire at the first cottage. The principal Cromlech [Tinkinswood Burial Chamber [Map]] stands just within the edge of a wood, two fields from the lane. It was first noticed by Mr. Malkin, and is, so far as we are aware, the largest Cromlech in Britain. The superincumbent stone, which is cracked about six feet from its narrow end, is supported by five others of large size, which enclose it entirely on the east, west, and north sides, thus forming a low room, open to the south, 16 feet long, 15 wide, and 6 high, in the loftiest part; but rubbish has accumulated to the extent of probably 3 feet, in which case the height would have been 9 feet. Some other rubbish, with a heap of stones, is placed about it to a greater height on the outside. The supporting stone on the north is 16 feet long; that on the west 9 feet; the three stones on the east are set closely together. The roof or horizontal stone is 17 feet in the widest part, 10 in the narrowest, 24 in length, and about 24 thick. It overhangs about two feet, and is partly covered with ivy. This stone is computed to contain 324 square feet! The Cromlech appears once to have been covered with a heap of small stones-a remarkable circumstance. -The second Cromlech at Duffryn, in an adjoining field, is uninteresting, and consists of only four stones.-These Cromlechs, and some others in Glamorganshire, are known by the "uncouth term of greyhound bitch kennels; " Mr. Malkin conjectures that "in all probability, the first British Christians, by way of showing their detestation, wherever they met with Druidical or heathenish places of worship, converted them into dog or bitch kennels. " But there are also instances in which Cromlechs are called churches.
Become a Member via our 'Buy Me a Coffee' page to read complete text.
Archaeologia Cambrensis 1849 Page 327. Cromlech, St. Nicholas, Cardiff [Map].—Last February one of the Secretaries of the Cambrian Archaeological Association when examining the great cromlech [Tinkinswood Burial Chamber [Map]] in the wood near St. Nicholas (figured in Cliffe's excellent "Book of South Wales,") found under it three recesses branching off from the main chamber, one of which was still lined at the sides with slabs of stone. They had evidently been made to contain bodies, and the earth within them was of a dark colour, such as would be made by the decomposition of animal remains. In one to the north-east he found part of a human lower jaw, with one of the teeth in it in good preservation, and presented it the same day to Mr. Bruce Pryce, the owner of the monument. It is probably still in possession of that gentleman.
Archaeologia Cambrensis 1862 Page 92. Tinkins-Wood Farm cromlech [Map], though less perfect, is a much larger structure than the last. It stands just within a modern plantation, and near the junction of several hedges, which much obscure the adjacent ground. This cromlech is half buried, and is surrounded for some yards by a quantity of earth and masses of rock, evidently the remains of a large mound, and possibly of other cromlechs. The chamber is an irregular trapezoid. There have been at least seven uprights, of which four remain; those on the south, a long side, being absent. The figure was, no doubt, governed by the roof-stone, which, though now cracked and chipped, has been in one piece, measuring twenty-two feet by fifteen feet, and about two feet six inches thick. The chamber (the floor of which is below the surrounding surface) measures eighteen feet by fifteen feet, greatest dimensions; and is at present about five feet six inches high. A human skull is said to have been recently found by the Rev. H. L. Jones under this cromlech.
Archaeologia Cambrensis 1875 Page 171. Not being satisfied with merely planning and sketching them, we were anxious to ascertain whether what had been thrown out from the interior resembled in any way the contents of similar localities examined elsewhere by myself and brothers; we therefore grubbed about amongst the debris of stones, etc., outside the St. Nicholas cromlech [Map], and soon discovered fragments of human teeth and unburnt bones, with portions of rude pottery, thus proving that its original use was the same everywhere, i. e., for the express purpose of burying the dead within, then covering them afterwards with a mound of earth or small stones, for the double purpose of concealing them, and marking the last resting place of departed chiefs or friends. There is no doubt whatever, that, whether we see cromlechs covered with a mound or denuded of their coverings, they were all sepulchral chambers and all originally covered by a mound or tumulus. Those we now find uncovered have been exposed to view by subsequent searchers after treasure, or the ground has in later times been removed for agricultural purposes.
Archaeologia Cambrensis Series 6 Volume 15 1905 St Nicholas Chambered Cairn. THE ST. NICHOLAS CHAMBERED TUMULUS, GLAMORGAN By JOHN WARD, F.S.A., Curator of the Cardiff Collections, National Museum of Wales
[The St. Nicholas Chambered Tumulus is now referred to as Tinkinswood Burial Chamber [Map]]
St. Nicholas is a small and ancient village, six miles west-south-west of Cardiff, on the highway from that city to Cowbridge, Neath and Carmarthen-a well-known road of Roman ancestry, and popularly known as the Via Julia. A mile-and-a-quarter to the south of the village is Dyffryn House1, the residence of Miss Cory and midway between the two, in a small plantation near Tinkinswood farmhouse, are the remains which are the subject of this paper. Plantation and farmhouse are on the apex of a wedge-shaped spur from the high ground at St. Nicholas. Along the south-west foot of this spur flows the Weycock, locally known as The Brook, a considerable stream which below Dyffryn House veers to the west and eventually flows into the estuary of the Dawe at Aberthaw while along the eastern foot is a small tributary which joins the parent stream a quarter-of-a-mile below the farmhouse. The summit of the apex is flat and about 280 ft. above the sea-level, with the plantation on its south-western brow and the farmhouse near its eastern. On its northern side, this small plateau is defined by a fall of several feet, beyond which the ground gradually ascends to 380 ft. at St. Nicholas. The surroundings are pleasantly diversified with hill and dale, woodland and pasture.
Note 1. Now usually spelled 'Duffryn.'
Archaeologia Cambrensis 1913 Page 100. Tinkinswood [Map].
Archaeologia Cambrensis 1927 Pages 1-43. The presence of these fragments in the passage of Capel Garmon shows that this tomb was in use early in the second millennium B.C., and that groups or families of the Beaker folk were living in the district. It is probable that these invaders controlled the countryside, and found it desirable, for political reasons, to utilise the burial places of the chiefs whom they displaced; usually, as is well known, they raised round barrows over their dead. Beaker pottery has been found elsewhere in Britain in two megalithic chambered tombs, the Tinkins Wood long cairn [Map], St. Nicholas, Glamorgan (Arch. Camb., 1916, p. 250), and the West Kennet long barrow [Map], Wiltshire (Devizes Museum), and similar conclusions may be drawn from the presence of this pottery in these burial-places.
Archaeologia Cambrensis 1874 Pages 59-. The St. Nicholas Cromlech [Map], though less picturesque, being nearly buried in earth, and in a thick wood, is one of great interest and importance. A photograph of it was kindly sent by Mr. Walter Evans; but was useless on account of the deep shadows. In fact, photographs of cromlechs are almost always useless, unless supplemented by drawings taken of the original from the same point of view. It was the same with a photograph of the St. Lythan's, and which by itself was perfectly unintelligible to one who did not know the details. In Lewis' Topographical Dictionary it is thus described: "It consists of large flat stones nearly 6 ft. in height, enclosing an area of 17 ft. in length by 13 in breadth, upon which rests a table 24 ft. long, and varying in breadth from 17 to 10 ft." This description is tolerably correct, except that the length of the chamber is 19 ft. 9 ins., and the breadth hardly 11; but as upon one side of the chamber all the stones have been removed, it is not easy to decide where the line should be drawn. The stone at the head of the chamber is 7 ft. 8 ins. broad, and had apparently a small one on one side. The proper breadth of the chamber is 10 ft. 6 ins. The opposite end was closed by stones 2 ft. 11. ins., and 5 ft. 8 ins.: in all, 8 ft. 7 ins. A stone is missing, probably 2 or 3 ft. broad, which would make this end correspond with the breadth of the opposite one. The other side is formed of one long stone 15 ft., leaving a gap of 3 ft. at each end to complete its length. The entrance was probably to the right of the present one, as either of the two stones can be moved which is not the case with that at the opposite end. The bearing is south-east. The original soil is still heaped on the top of the stones, but has been almost cleared off the face of the capstone, which has had the smaller part cracked or broken, but still remaining in its place. The greatest thickness is about but even this does not seem to have been equal to bear the weight of the tumulus, which has probably caused the crack, especially when the great length of the stone is considered. Larger capstones are in existence, but this is probably the largest or at least the longest in these islands. There are several vast rocks of the same character scattered about, brought thither by natural causes; and it is their presence which, no doubt, has led to the erecting of these two chambers in this locality. E. L. Barnwell.
Become a Member via our 'Buy Me a Coffee' page to read complete text.