Whiteleaf Cross

HISTORY
AND ARCHAEOLOGY
Whiteleaf Hill has long been known as an important place in
the Chilterns landscape, but the archaeological investigations
which accompanied the recent restoration programme have
considerably improved our understanding of the site and shed
new light upon the activities undertaken there.
Hunter gatherers visited the site over 6,000 years ago, making
use of a highly advantageous place from which to observe and
hunt game, but activity on the hill intensified from around
4,000 BC when people began to farm in the area and transform the landscape around them.
The Neolithic barrow is one of the earliest monuments in
Buckinghamshire and is part of a small, but significant group of
oval burial mounds in southern Britain. Most of the barrow
was excavated by Sir William Lindsay Scott in the 1930s, but
recent work has re-examined his site and excavation archives
and undertaken new analysis, including radiocarbon dating of
the material he excavated.
Scott uncovered the disturbed burial of a man of aboveaverage height, who was at least 45 years old when he died.
His teeth were worn through grinding rough foods and some
had abscess cavities, while his bones exhibited signs of arthritis. Radiocarbon dating shows that he died around 3700 3650 BC. He was probably an important person in local
society for, instead of being buried in a communal tomb, as is
much more common at this time, this man was buried alone.
Re-examination of Scott’s excavation surface suggested that
the corpse was placed between two halves of a split tree trunk,
around 0.85 m in diameter, which would have formed the
basis of the mortuary structure.
The body was covered with dark soil containing much pottery,
flint and animal bone which probably came from ceremonies
relating to the burial, perhaps feasting. A radiocarbon date
on residue surviving on one of the pot sherds excavated in the
1930s shows that the pot was used at around 3500 BC.
Statistical analysis of the dating indicates that the burial mound
was formed between 45 to 150 years after the death of the
man at its centre, showing that people continued to revisit the
site and modify it through time. Chalk from surrounding ditches
covered the barrow, creating a conspicuous feature in the
landscape. It appears to have been renewed and enhanced
by further chalky deposits later in the 4th millennium.
The proximity of flint nodules to the surface of the hill, in the
Clay-with-flint deposits which patchily cap the
chalk, must have made Whiteleaf attractive
throughout the period before metal came into
common use, as flint was one of the best
materials for making sharp tools. A dense
scatter of worked flint found on the northern
knoll suggests that, in the later Neolithic
HISTORY
AND ARCHAEOLOGY
(around 3000 - 2400 BC), nodules were being tested and
cores shaped here before being removed for final working
elsewhere.
Snails recovered from the Neolithic barrow show that throughout this period of time the hill remained quite densely wooded,
with relatively undisturbed, mature, broad-leafed deciduous
woodland and abundant leaf litter. There is only limited
evidence of activity on the hill during most of the Bronze Age
(2400 - 750 BC), but Scott did find the cremated remains of a
child within a Bronze Age burial urn placed in the side of the
Neolithic barrow mound. Sherds from another small, thinwalled Bucket Urn found in the 2003 excavations suggest that
there were (or are) other secondary burials in the mound.
By the time that the cross-ridge dyke and curvilinear earthwork
were constructed, probably towards the end of the Bronze
Age or in the early Iron Age (c 1000 - 500 BC), there is
environmental evidence for some established short-turfed or
grazed grassland in the vicinity, although the landscape
remained largely wooded. The cross-ridge dyke cuts across
the narrowest part of the hill, and would have created an
effective barrier, controlling access to and/or from the promontory on the hill. It is a substantial feature, perhaps suggesting
that it had an important symbolic as well as a practical role as
a territorial boundary. It is also possible that it served to
corrale animals during certain times of the year, making the
most efficient use of the steep slopes around the hill, with
dense vegetation and fences to prevent stock from escaping.
Scott identified a Roman rubbish pit cut into the side of the
barrow and found four 4th-century Roman coins as well as
Roman pottery in the turf of the mound and in the top of the
barrow ditch. Similar finds were made in the 2003 excavations. The pottery fragments are small and the vessels represented unexceptional, but large parts of a smashed fineware
mortarium were recovered from a hollow in the ground surface
nearby and it is possible that some items were being deliberately placed at the site, possibly associated with food preparation. This may represent simple curiosity - an interest in the
ancient remains and the wonderful prospect from the hill - but it
is apparent elsewhere that offerings were being left at barrows
in the Roman period. In this context, the discovery in 2006 of
a Roman votive copper-alloy leaf in the windmill mound was
particularly exciting. These objects would have been votive
offerings associated with pagan worship and would probably
have been deposited at a shrine or, perhaps, a place of
significance in the natural landscape as an
offering to the genius loci. Such sites may have
been seen as being close to the gods, or a
place to contact heroes and/or ancestors.
HISTORY
AND ARCHAEOLOGY
In the centuries just before the Norman Conquest, Whiteleaf
Hill was part of the estate of Canterbury Cathedral and lay
within Monks Risborough, as described in an early boundary
charter of 903. We have not so far discovered any evidence
of how the land was used at that time, but we know that it was
part of the medieval commons belonging to Monks Risborough
at a later date. Every parish would have had one or more
windmills or water mills, and a number of Buckinghamshire
mills were erected upon hill- or ridge-tops. The mound to the
north of the Neolithic barrow seems to have been the site of a
post mill, constructed in the late 16th or 17th century. The mill
does not appear to have been a success, for it was not in use
for long before being dismantled and taken elsewhere. As kite
flyers today will tell you, the wind flow over the top of the hill is
uneven, and this may have led to early difficulties in its operation, its distance from arable fields may also have proved
unpopular.
The date of the first cutting of Whiteleaf Cross is as enigmatic
now as it was when the project commenced. The first known
record of its existence is found in an account written by the
Oxford Radcliffe librarian, Francis Wise, in 1742, who
describes it as ‘an antiquity of the same kind with the White Horse, being formed of
the same manner’, and it appears on T Jeffrey’s ‘Map of Bucks’ of 1787,
but it does not appear in earlier antiquarian accounts of the
area. In the words of Scott, the excavator of the Neolithic
barrow ‘In itself, Wise’s statement hardly puts the Cross back before 1700’.
The scouring of the Cross was an important local custom in the
19th and early 20th centuries.
During or just before the First World War, part of the hilltop
was used for the excavation of practice trenches and the
remains of these can still be seen today. Common land was a
suitable place to muster and drill the local militia and volunteers, and the 17th-century musket ball found in test-pit sieving
may indicate the longevity of this practice on Whiteleaf Hill.
From Neolithic burials and Roman votive offerings to 20thcentury battle drills and 21st-century picnics, there is no doubt
about the ancient and continuing importance of the Hill to the
inhabitants of the surrounding area.
The timeline pages which follow these give a basic summary of
the key events in the site’s past, running from 600 million years
ago to the present day.
HISTORY
AND ARCHAEOLOGY
The Black Hedge (or Blacan hegcean) is one of the oldest recorded
boundaries in England. It was first identified as a boundary
feature in a charter of 903 AD. It describes the Saxon estate
of East Risborough, later to become, in the most part, the
modern parish of Monks Risborough. It also includes parts of
Longwick, Kimble, Lacey Green and Hampden. The charter is
in fact a copy from an earlier document, date unknown, which
was destroyed by fire. King Edward the Elder gave permission
to Aethelfrith, a governor of the parish, to reproduce this
valuable document.
Significant portions of this 14-mile long boundary can still be
seen in the modern landscape which makes it a very ancient
feature indeed. The charter is unusual for its time in that it
outlines the area of the estate by giving a written description of
a trail along the boundary.
The translated text, described in a ‘sunwise’ or clockwise
direction, reads: “First from the gore into the Black Hedge.
From the hedge down to the foul brook, From the foul brook to
the west of the ash tree on the bank, thence into the old ditch
to the west of the herdsman’s buildings. From that ditch so as to
come on to the ridge of the wood on Eadric’s boundary. Along
Eadric’s boundary so as to come on to the boundary of the
Kimble folk. Along that boundary so as to come on to Icknield.
Along Icknield as far as the heathen burial-place. Thence on to
the king’s street. Up along that street to Westland’s stock. From
that stock downwards beside the roe deer fence.
Then to the hay glade. From the glade downwards so as to
come back to the gore”.
A local community project run by the Risborough Countryside
Group has recorded, surveyed, conserved and interpreted the
history of the hedge.
Reference: A.H.J.Baines. Records of Bucks. Vol XX111 (1981)
pp 76-98
Black hedge as taken from Windsor
Hill looking west towards the south
end of Princes Risborough
© Roger Newman