All Cannings Long Barrow: Mansion of Eternity
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COMMENTARY All Cannings Long Barrow: Mansion of Eternity Rosemary Senior Independent Researcher [email protected] I am getting to the age where one starts to think about what you want your family to do with your mortal remains once you’re gone. The loss of my parents a few years back naturally brought this closer to the surface. Their only request was to stay with me, hence their current residence in the cupboard under the stairs. They can’t stay there forever. How the ancients of many different cultures dealt with their dead has been an interest of mine for many years, first with ancient Egypt and later with the native practices of the ancient peoples of Britain. It struck me that dying seems to be an inconvenience these days. There’s no room to bury everyone and there’s no opportunity to leave a stone memorial that has any wit or individuality to it. Cemeteries, both churchyards and council run, have rules about what you can do and a limited rental of the space you’re buried in. When your ashes are scattered to the wind or lost to the whim of some bureaucrat, that’s it. Your connection to the world and to your descendents is gone and no one will remember you beyond your immediate family, or with luck, any documents that might survive. The ancient Egyptians believed that to speak the name of the dead was to make them live again. Now, I don’t equate myself with some pharaoh, but I would like to be useful beyond my life or maybe give someone in the future some pause for thought. I could be useful by donating organs if they’re not too decrepit, but since my interests lean towards archaeology and social anthropology, it would be interesting to leave something for future researchers to ponder over. I always felt I wanted to be buried as part of a time capsule, but since burial in a stone sarcophagus or in a boat surrounded by possessions for the afterlife seems too much of a burden for my family to undertake, I was puzzling about what I might be able to do to fulfil my wishes without causing trouble. Studying for the University of Wales Trinity Saint David’s Master’s in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology brought the monuments of ancient Britain to the forefront of my attention. Two of my modules studied sacred geography and archaeoastronomy and I JSA 6.1 (2020) 128–132 ISSN (print) 2055-348X https://doi.org/10.1558/jsa.42319 ISSN (online) 2055-3498 All Cannings Long Barrow 129 began to look more closely at the monuments left in the landscape by our ancestors, and the meaning with which they imbued these spaces. As a side project, I decided to visit as many megalithic sites in the UK as was practicable, my husband noting that the ancients certainly knew how to place these sites to get a good view. He looked at this from a walker’s perspective, but to me the monuments were sited where people could see them and for their occupants to still be a part of the community; the continuity of place. By chance, during this study I noticed an article posted on my Facebook page about a Wiltshire farmer who with a friend also worked as a volunteer at Stonehenge. Over a pub lunch they wondered if it might be possible to resurrect the tradition of long barrow building. Tim Daw’s farm is set in the sacred landscape of Wiltshire and he had a corner of a field in mind for just such a project. When I first contacted him, he had only just received planning permission for this most unusual building: a columbarium in the form of a traditional long barrow, such as the ones at West Kennet or Stoney Littleton. He was trying to raise the funds to build and when I met him he only had a demonstration niche built outside his farmhouse. Rather than give him the cash he was suggesting for a family niche, I agreed to provide a load of sarsen stones, bought later that day from the reclama- tion yard nearby in Devizes. These stones are now in the front face of the completed barrow. I was present at the first cutting of the soil at winter solstice sunrise, where Tim used an antler pick to break the ground and we all drank a libation to the success of the project (Figure 1). I think there were about half a dozen of us there that cold, wet dawn, but it was the start of something that has inspired others to build modern barrows in other locations. From then on, I took an active interest in the All Cannings build and visited several times to watch the construction progress (Figure 2). FIGURE 1. The author early on when only two poles marked the main axis of the barrow (photograph by Tim Daw, with permission). © 2020 EQUINOX PUBLISHING LTD 130 Rosemary Senior FIGURE 2. The barrow under construction (photograph by the author). After the All Cannings barrow was completed, ex-banker Toby Angel saw an opening in the funerary market and set up Sacred Stones with Geraint Davies and Martin Fildes, who provided the dry stone walling expertise to the Devizes build. They have now picked up the baton, running a business building barrows, first at Hail Weston in Cambridgeshire, then at Soulton Hall in Shropshire. With the media attention given to this unusual provi- sion, there have since been requests for more across the UK in the counties of Yorkshire, Norfolk and Nottinghamshire and even some considerations from abroad. It seems the idea that ruminated with Tim Daw and Simon Banton for so long has hit a mother lode, with people wanting more than the sterile and temporary funerary arrangements currently available. The original barrows were at the heart of their communities, active locations for ceremony and feasting. This need to assert the continuity of a community on its land and to celebrate the ancestors is a part of human culture and has been for thousands of years. Modern society has pushed death into the shadows; we don’t like to consider or talk about it until the matter is thrust upon us. It has lost its cultural sting and we are left to mourn alone. It doesn’t have to be that way. I picked out a family-sized niche in the left-hand rear chamber (Figure 3) as close as possible to the solstice light that comes down the passage in winter and bought my funerary urn – night blue with stars. Hopefully I won’t need it for a while as I have lots of © 2020 EQUINOX PUBLISHING LTD All Cannings Long Barrow 131 travel plans on my bucket list, but that’s one less thing my family will have to organise. My cousin, who was also wondering what to do with her own ashes, loved the idea of the barrow. She’ll be bringing her mum as I will be bringing my parents, so we’ll all be together for as long as the Fates allow – family in death as well as life. Hubby can come along too if he wants. I’ll also put a few archaeological items of no monetary value where space allows, along with some DNA material. Hopefully this will give the archaeologists of the future something to puzzle over, as I always wanted. FIGURE 3. The author’s niche at the long barrow (photograph by the author). A local stonemason named Lisi Ashbridge has created a coverstone for us in Welsh slate (Figure 4). It’s great to be a part of this process, to be proactive with our departure. It is also a pleasure to meet some of the folks who also have niches, so although we come from different places, we are building a community by our decision to purchase a niche in the barrow. It’s a very special thing and I am so pleased that as the occupants of the first new barrow in around 5000 years, we have started a trend for more personal and human modern funerary options. © 2020 EQUINOX PUBLISHING LTD 132 Rosemary Senior FIGURE 4. The top of the coverstone (photograph by the author). As Robert DeNiro’s character Frank Sheeran says in The Irishman, “the hardest part for anybody […] is when they go into the ground because it’s so final, but you go into a building – the building’s there, the crypt is there […] – you’re dead but it ain’t that final.” Having a barrow as a final resting place is a reminder that lives were lived and cherished. It doesn’t really matter if our names are forgotten if the monument remains in the landscape. People in the future will look at it and wonder and we will live again. © 2020 EQUINOX PUBLISHING LTD.