Welsh Journals

REPORT ON THE EXCAVATION OF A BRONZE AGE BARROW AT LLONG NEAR MOLD Edited by FRANCES LYNCH The burial mound at Llong was excavated during three successive years, 1954-6. The work was directed by Peter Hayes, then working in the Flintshire County Record Office, and was sponsored by the Flintshire Historical Society. Permission for the excavation was granted by the landowner, the late Mrs Fairbairn-Wynne- Eyton of Leeswood Hall whose tenant, Mr Jonathan Jones of Hill Farm, co- operated fully with the project. Apart from Mr Hayes, the two people who were most closely concerned with the work were the late Mr Myrddyn Bevan-Evans, then County Archivist for Flintshire, and Dr Douglas Fraser of Mold who took the excellent photographs which remain the best record of the progress of the work. Amateur volunteers from various walks of life made up the workforce. These included Mr Alistair Clark (1955 and 56), Mr Simon Digby (1955), Miss Rosemary Harris (1955), Major and Mrs Hayes (1955 and 56), Mr Anthony Meyer (1955 and 56), Mr and Mrs Bryan Needham (1955), and Mr Peter Needham (1956), Mr and Mrs Wilkinson (1955), Mr Peter Hall-Roberts (1956), Mr Wilson (1956) and thirteen-year-old Allan Thomas (1955). Although brief reports appeared in local and national newspapers each year, no final report has been published in any archaeological journal. This brief report has been prepared with the agreement of Mr Hayes by Mrs Jane Chambre as part of her BA dissertation at the University College of North Wales. Unfortunately, no plans or notebooks from the excavation could be found amongst the excavation papers kept in the Clwyd Record Office in Hawarden, so this report has been put together from correspondence, newspaper cuttings, lecture notes, and the portfolio of photographs. Happily the finds, jet beads, flint implements and cremated bones, had all been preserved at Hawarden where they remain, but the primary in- humation, which had been sent to Professor Cave in London for examination, was not amongst them. Mrs Chambre arranged for the identification of the cremations which was carried out by Dr Leonard Wilkinson of the Department of Anatomy, University College, Cardiff. The absence of a general plan of the monument is the most serious problem, but the diagrammatic one given here has been submitted to Mr Hayes and to Dr Fraser for their approval, and they agree that it is broadly accurate. The barrow at Llong had excited interest because it was one of a series of mounds in the bottom of the Alyn valley, a series which included the famous