A Neolithic long barrow near Rodmarton with a blocked doorway that leads nowhere and real entrances hidden along its sides
Open accessfree to visit at any reasonable time
Standing remainssubstantial fabric survives to stand in front of
Two standing stones topped by a stone lintel and sealed with a slab form a false entrance near the eastern tip of Windmill Tump Long Barrow, built to look like a doorway but leading nowhere. The real way in is on the south side of the mound instead, a short passage into one of three or more stone-built burial chambers. People built the barrow in the early Neolithic period, somewhere between 4000 and 3500 BC. Digs in the late 19th century and again in 1939 recovered thirteen skeletons and leaf-shaped arrowheads, and storms in 1987 brought down two trees whose roots exposed a chamber nobody had recorded before, along with a child’s bones and a large capstone. Roman coins and pottery found inside show people were still visiting, or burying their dead, here centuries after the barrow was built. There’s no charge to walk round the mound; the Monarch’s Way passes within a couple of hundred metres, and Rodmarton Manor, a historic house and garden, is a short walk further on.
