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tjj wrote: I was in Petersfield at the weekend visiting friends. We went for a walk on the heath and I did see something resembling a long barrow - but probably not as it seems only Bronze Age barrows are recorded as being there (did post a diagram of where they are located).
To be honest I didn't know what a pillow mound was until you asked your question but looked it up. It seems they were used in medieval times to farm rabbits for their meat and fur. The soil on Petersfield Heath is very sandy (greensand?) which seems conducive to rabbit warrens, although I didn't see any evidence of any these days. Its an odd place isn't it - reminded me of bits of London without the ethic mix. I liked your comment on the Home Page "Amazing place, isn't it? Quite surreal with so many locals walking past unconcerned with what is around them. Part of the landscape. Always has been." Very much my impression too. One of my friends who lives there said Petersfield came into existence as a stopping off place for gold traders going between the Continent and Wales. Also on the information board the heath is described as 'A Hallowed Heath - It is said that many of these barrows look to Barrow Hill, aligned to the sunset and sunrise on May Day and the summer and winter solstice'. I don't really see how any one could prove this was intentional given the number of barrows (and their shape).
Interesting observations June. It really is quite an extraordinary place.
To my mind it's inconceivable that schedulers missed a long barrow on the heath, so a pillow mound was the only thing I could think of. As Lubin says, it does look like one.... but then if I was told it was an LB I would accept that because it also looks like a long barrow after millennia of weathering. As with upland cairns, context is everything. Which doesn't help here since I've seen LBs to which round barrow cemeteries have been added. Perhaps it's been excavated, or there are parish records?
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