Follow the Sarsen Way to Adam's Grave to find out.
See an astonishing late Stone Age barrow.
Shiver at the ghosts of Saxon warriors on a battlefield from the Dark Ages.
Adam's Grave...
What would you expect of an ancient path? That it has been the same marked way for thousands of years: one route, one name? Icknield, Peddars, Ridgeway. Or can it be one that melds a variety of old ways along its course, following them or crossing them, linking sites trodden by the boots of ages, scuffing up at every step the residue of past happenings, and cloaked to this day in mist and mystery? The South Downs Way, the coast paths, Offa's Dyke.
Well, it can be one of that second group, I believe. And the little-known Sarsen Way qualifies, surely, as a member. It runs for a little short of 50 miles from the Downs above Marlborough along a line south to Salisbury. Of course, starting at Salisbury Cathedral, and heading north, would be just as good. The name is relatively new, but not the tracks we follow. They take us on ancient journeys and remind us of former places, events and stories.
The Sarsen Way, following the old Ridgeway
This is the country where Arthur confronted an army of marauding Saxons and sent them packing, then Merlin cast a spell which turned the fleeing invaders to stone. The petrified Saxons litter the North Wessex Downs and Salisbury Plain. They are the sarsen stones: some are so large that they have always stood bleakly above ground, seared by wind and frost, bleached in a weak sun, at times seeming to lurch through shifting fogs; other sarsen stones have emerged from the enveloping earth over centuries to join the the dotted gathering; many more must remain hidden in the chalky soil for now, ready to poke through and show themselves one day.
Haw-frost
That is legend, but the truth is no less tantalising, as we discovered on a freezing December morning as we joined the Sarsen Way at Overton Hill, near Avebury Circle and West Kennet Long Barrow, and followed it south along the Ridgeway (as it extends beyond the standard end-point of the Ridgeway trail at Overton). We arrived at the site of a desperate contest, the battle of Woden’s Barrow, believed to have been fought in the year 592, well after the time of the legendary Arthur.
We crossed the River Kennet and climbed gently, southward, into hills covered in crystal hoarfrost before arriving at an old barrier across the route, known as Wansdyke. The dyke stretches miles to the west and east, save for a gap at this point, an opening, at a place called Red Shore. One and a half thousand years ago it was a crucial crossing point at a border between rival Saxon bands who controlled territory to the north and south. Today the gap allows walkers to pass through on level ground in a leisurely way.
Climbing to Wansdyke and Adam's Grave
What you come to on the other side is a cone of land topped by a giant barrow. This is Adam's Grave, the barrow the Saxons attributed to their chief god, Woden, the one they called upon in times of war. It is of much earlier date, of course, and reminiscent of the long barrows of West Kennet and Wayland's Smithy, though exceptional in that the neolithic builders chose a site to astonish, at the pointed summit of a breast of land overlooking wide downs and valleys.
Topping the Grave
Approaching Adam's Grave it is worth pondering the extreme age of the barrow, and thinking of what might have happened here, of what is gone and what remains. We climbed out of the mist, to be treated to a view of the clouds beneath us. The top of the barrow, flattened and pounded out by walkers, seemed to float like a platform in the air. The prominence, the above-ness, with the sky as a close neighbour, must have played a part in the decision to place a burial at the site. The work was done more than 5,500 years ago.
Like a platform in the air
Human remains were found inside, in the first excavations, along with dark chambers and sarsen stones. And later a two-edged iron sword was pulled out of an adjoining hill, perhaps a relic of the fierce battle in Saxon times, thousands of years on from the late Stone Age when the barrow was built but still long ago.
What happened, then, in 592? A Saxon leader named Ceol had moved into an area south of Wansdyke, and set himself up as a local king, challenging and in this year attacking one Ceawlin, who was the established king of Wessex. Ceawlin had helped to spearhead the Saxon advance from the former British fort at Old Sarum, north to Pewsey and the Marlborough Downs, as far as Barbury Castle which is on the Ridgeway near Avebury and well north of Wansdyke. Ceawlin went on to defeat the Britons between Bath and Bristol, then his luck ran out. The outcome of the fight on our route along the Sarsen Way is described in the Winchester manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:
"Here there was great slaughter at Woden's Barrow and Ceawlin was driven out."
The Chronicle reports that Ceawlin perished the next year. Michael Swanton's edition of the text adds this note on the location: "A tumulus called Adam's Grave, at Alton Priors, Wiltshire, close to a gap in the defensive line of Wansdyke (Woden's Dyke); it was still a landmark in the 9th century".
"Here there was great slaughter"
The Sarsen Way, then, is a twisted yarn of ancient paths turning through a landscape of ancient monuments with many tales to tell. From Adam's Grave it follows the Kennet and Avon Canal and heads down to the Avon valley, passing close to Durrington, Woodhenge and various old barrows, before arriving at Old Sarum, then Salisbury. Stonehenge is a couple of miles off the route.
The walk takes several days, depending on where you start and finish. We stopped about half way along, at Upavon, so the rest of the journey awaits.
Ref. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, Swanton; The Archaeology of Wessex, Grinsell
On to the Avon Valley
The Sarsen Way
Kennet and Avon Canal
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