Roman barrows have long been known on the Continent and in R this country, but until recent years they have hardly received the attention they deserve. In the forties and fifties of last century a number of Roman barrows suffered from the jaunty zeal of tophatted antiquaries and their attendant ladies who, as at the opening of the Holborough barrow in 1844, contrived to pass the time ‘at intervals between digging and pic-nicing, in games of various descriptions … and in other amusements’, but who were sometimes glad of the shelter ‘afforded by the hole we had ourselves dug … in which we managed so to interlace parasols and umbrellas … as to form a tolerably impenetrable roof over our heads’.