It is impossible to approach Stonehenge without passing numbers of burial mounds or Barrows. North, south, east, or west they meet the eye, some singly, some in groups. In the immediate neighbourhood of Stonehenge there are two Long Barrows and three hundred Round ones, or, in other words, one-fourth of the Barrows in Wiltshire are to be found within a short distance of the Altar Stone of Stonehenge. This cannot altogether be accidental. The suggestion at once rises to the mind that these burial places clustering about the circle of Stonehenge are strongly reminiscent of the graveyard about the village church of to-day. The Rev. William Gilpin, writing in 1798, when as yet the Plain was unbroken by the plough and cultivation, recognised this fact at once. "All the Plain, at least that part of it near Stonehenge, is one vast cemetery.... From many places we counted above a hundred of them at once; sometimes as if huddled together, without any design, in other places rising in a kind of order. Most of them are placed on the more elevated parts of the Plain, and generally in sight of the great Temple." At one time it was considered that these Barrows were the monuments erected to the memory of warriors who had fallen in battle. Though this popular conception is still current, it seems hardly likely that a victorious army would tarry after the day was won to erect these laborious monuments, all of which are designed and laid out with no little skill. A far more reasonable hypothesis, and one more in accordance with fact, is that they represent the graves of exalted personages, and that their erection extended over a considerable period. The Barrows may be roughly divided into two classes: (i) the Long Barrow; (ii) the Round Barrow, with its three variants, the Bowl, the Bell, and Disc Barrow. The Long Barrow is the older form, and may usually be referred to the Neolithic Age. Wiltshire is specially rich in Long Barrows. There are no fewer than seventy-two within its limits, and fourteen others have been destroyed within the past century. They are usually found standing alone, and very seldom is it possible to find two of them within sight. They are also, as a rule, found upon rising ground. Their construction is somewhat curious. They vary from two to four hundred feet in length, thirty to fifty feet in breadth, and from three to twelve feet in height. The earth of which they are composed was dug out from a trench on either side of the mound. This trench did not, however, continue round the two ends of the barrow. They lie usually, but not always, east and west, and the eastern end is higher than that at the west. Within the higher end is the sepulchral deposit. [Illustration: A Map of Stonehenge Down]