Newmarket Heath (3), Newmarket, Suffolk

Tumulus (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – TL 6122 6358

Archaeology & History

Tumulus ‘3’ on 1834 map

This is one of at least five prehistoric tombs that were known to have existed in and around the Newmarket race-course—all long gone.  It stood some 50-60 yards northeast of the Newmarket Heath (2) tumulus and was one in the cluster highlighted as ‘tumuli’ on the 1834 OS-map (right).  Despite its destruction sometime in 1883, a scar of the monument was seen from the air in the 1940s by J.K.S. St Joseph as a ploughed-out ring ditch, showing it to have been some seventy feet across.  Sadly, no ground trace of the monument exists.

References:

  1. Fox, Cyril, The Archaeology of the Cambridge Region, Cambridge University Press 1923.
  2. Royal Commission Ancient Historical Monuments, Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Cambridgeshire – Volume 2: North-East Cambridgeshire, HMSO: London 1972.

© Paul BennettThe Northern Antiquarian


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