Note 152 — Chapter IX

But a more interesting road from Linton is that which continues along the Bourne Valley, and leads, not into Suffolk, but into Essex, which is here bounded by that stream. A mile beyond the town we pass Barham Hall, now a farm-house, but of old a Priory of the same Order that we found at Isleham,[152] a Cell (or Colony) of the Abbey of St. Jacutus de Insula in Brittany. Another mile brings us to Bartlow, where, hard by the church, stand the three huge tumuli from which the name of the village is said to be derived. How they came to exist is an unsolved problem. Remains found in them, when excavated in 1835, were reported to be Roman, but the science of archæology was then in its infancy, and this report can hardly outweigh the wholly un-Roman appearance of the "Hills," as they are locally called. They look far more like British or Scandinavian work; but, indeed, three such mounds so close together are not found elsewhere, of any age.