Morgan’s Hill

Also known as:
Bishops Cannings 1-3
Nearest town:
Calne (5km WNW)
OS reference:
SU029671
OS sheet:
173
Latitude:
51° 24' 8.56 N
Longitude:
1° 57' 29.9 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by thesweetcheat

Bishops Cannings 3, looking west. Beyond, Wansdyke heads off down the hill.

Image credit: A. Brookes (7.2.2014)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Mar 23, 2014
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by thesweetcheat

The mutilated Bishops Cannings 3, looking east towards the top of Morgan’s Hill.

Image credit: A. Brookes (7.2.2014)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Mar 23, 2014
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by thesweetcheat

Bishops Cannings 3, the northern of the trio of barrows on the west of Morgan’s Hill. It’s suffered more than the others: “... dug out [and] now only a crescentic bank 1.3m. high remains” (Pastscape).

Image credit: A. Brookes (7.2.2014)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Mar 23, 2014
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by thesweetcheat

Bishops Cannings 1, showing the proximity of the much later Wansdyke (right).

Image credit: A. Brookes (7.2.2014)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Mar 23, 2014
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by thesweetcheat

Bishops Cannings 1 round barrow, the finest of the three barrows on the western side of Morgan’s Hill.

Image credit: A. Brookes (7.2.2014)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Mar 23, 2014
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by thesweetcheat

Despite the quarrying immediately behind the barrow, and the animal burrows into the mound, Bishops Cannings 2 remains a decent size.

Image credit: A. Brookes (7.2.2014)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Mar 23, 2014
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by thesweetcheat

Looking west across the top of Bishops Cannings 2 round barrow.

Image credit: A. Brookes (7.2.2014)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Mar 23, 2014
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by thesweetcheat

Bishops Cannings 2 round barrow, the southwest of the group of three on the western side of Morgan’s Hill. Looking WSW towards King’s Play Hill.

Image credit: A. Brookes (7.2.2014)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Mar 23, 2014
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by thesweetcheat

Landscape context from Cherhill Hill to the NNE. Various round barrows encircle the summit masts.

Image credit: A. Brookes (7.9.2013)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Nov 13, 2013
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by Chance

Looking towards Furze Knoll and the summit, from the Southern gate.

Image credit: Chance - May 2008
Chance
Chance May 21, 2008
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by Chance

The inner enclosure of Furze Knoll. An ancient flint mine or a gateway to the underworld.

Image credit: Chance - May 2008
Chance
Chance May 21, 2008
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by Chance

The Wansdyke with the Radio Masts.
The site was only used after Alexander Keiller brought Windmill Hill to prevent the B.B.C. building the first radio transmitter outside London in 1924.

Image credit: Chance - May 2008
Chance
Chance May 21, 2008
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by Chance

The Wansdyke snakes down to Baltic Farm and across Bishops Cannings Down.

Image credit: Chance - May 2008
Chance
Chance May 21, 2008
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by Chance

Furze Knoll, with it’s guardian enclosing beech trees, sits on the top of the downs. If the Avebury region is sacred, then this high point must have been marked by something special.

Image credit: Chance - May 2008
Chance
Chance May 21, 2008
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by Chance

The Wansdyke snakes up to the summit of Morgan’s Hill between the radio masts and Furze Knoll.

Image credit: Chance - May 2008
Chance
Chance May 21, 2008
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by Chance

This is the site of two Bronze Age Round Barrows. Now the North Wiltshire Golf Club. They might still be there somewhere.

Image credit: Chance - May 2008
Chance
Chance May 21, 2008
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by Chance

The Bronze age round barrow NMR No. 45564 with Furze Knoll in the background.

Image credit: Chance - May 2008
Chance
Chance May 21, 2008
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by Chance

Looking back along the ancient track

Image credit: Chance - May 2008
Chance
Chance May 21, 2008
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by Chance

The edge of the downs looking towards Calne showing linear features possibly strip lynchets (or trackways).

Image credit: Chance - May 2008
Chance
Chance May 21, 2008
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by Chance

The fosse caused the Roman Road and the Wansdyke merge, looking east

Image credit: Chance - May 2008
Chance
Chance May 21, 2008
Image of Morgan’s Hill (Round Barrow(s)) by Chance

Morgans Hill as seen from Oldbury Castle

Image credit: Chance - 15/04/08
Chance
Chance Apr 15, 2008

Articles

Folklore

Morgan’s Hill
Round Barrow(s)
Chance
Chance Jul 15, 2010

Morgan’s Hill is so named after a Mr. Morgan of Heddington who murdered his uncle. For this he not only hung but his body was left hanging on the hill top gibbet.

Gibbeting was common law punishment, which a judge could impose in addition to execution. This practice was regularised in England by the Murder Act 1752, which empowered judges to impose this for murder. It was most often used for traitors, murderers, highwaymen, pirates, and sheep-stealers, and was intended to discourage others from committing similar offences.

As was the case with murderers, he was not given a Christian burial in a church yard but what was left of his remains were placed face down and covered with stones. In Morgan’s case, this was somewhere on the parish boundary between Heddington and Bishop Cannings, probably just over the road from Smallgrain Plantation. It would appear that the spot contains several bodies of highwaymen too, but none of the infamous Cherhill Gang who robbed the stagecoaches naked, for none was ever caught.

This tale told to me by the late Mr. Atwell of the motor museum who was shown the very spot while out horse riding “on the same day they buried Winston Churchill”.

Miscellaneous

Morgan’s Hill
Round Barrow(s)
Chance
Chance May 5, 2008

Morgan’s Hill

After the rain
a long view – and larks.
A climb through three gates,
but worth it for the best of Wiltshire.
We, surprised even now by this green antiquity
touching instinct, breathe in and smile.
And the sun points out meadows,
clouds paint themselves
and high Morgan’s Hill sings its great wide song
to us until
we turn to the circle of trees,
and the hollow hauls us into itself.
A stump, scattered stones,
a fire’s corpse and a stagnant pool;
a rook floats, sodden, swollen.
Here we are no longer part of things -
or part of something other.
We leave symptoms of ourselves everywhere.
Out there the winds dilute us.
Here, face to face with these echoes,
we fall silent.
Saddened, with nothing
but the rushing of beech about us,
we stumble out,
finding a sky we do not recognize
full of something darker than the rain.

Sean Street, 1989

Miscellaneous

Morgan’s Hill
Round Barrow(s)
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Jul 11, 2006

Morgan’s Hill has a lot of interesting features – a cross dyke from the middle Bronze Age, numerous round barrows (some apparently in a group), and various unprehistoric things like Wansdyke and a Roman road. It’s also got great views, and lots of chalk downland plants and animals. It’s relatively easy to pinpoint from afar, as it’s got a large wireless mast and a distinctive clump of trees.

Sites within 20km of Morgan’s Hill

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