b'Wolds Barrow - An Island of PrehistoryMike PrattMortimer documents when each barrow was opened, what was found and also mentions the prevailing weather conditions, explaining that some work had to be adandoned due to rain. It is intriguing enough to follow his description of what was found, made more vivid by A s you travel along the A166 towards Bridlingtonthe copious, hand-drawn illustrations that are credited after climbing Garrowby Hill you will see theto Agnes Mortimer. Within this Garrowby Wold Group, mound, pictured here, on your left. It is topped byMortimer found human burials and cremations, a clump of trees; an island in a ploughed field. Itdrinking cups and vases, worked flints, animal bones, could well be the site of a barrow that escaped thedeer antlers, jet beads, bone tools. Although he attention of J. R. Mortimer in the 1800s when heattributed these to prehistory, he labelled them simply systematically excavated other sites in the area. Inas British without anymore precise dating which was his fascinating book 1when describing the Garrowbybeyond the capabilities of the time.Wold Group of barrows he refers to Barrow A:The Wolds round barrows are put into a This barrow cannot at present be opened withoutmore precise prehistoric context by more recent removing and destroying numbers of a clump of firexcavations and reassessments of what the likes of trees, with which it is thickly covered. On NovemberMortimer unearthed 2 . So, when you spot this island 20th, 1883, its diameter was 60 feet, and elevation 5of prehistory, marvel that it is around 4,000 years old, feet. Although the trees have changed in the ensuinghaving been created in the Early Bronze Age. Added 125 years it does seem to have kept its form whilstto which it is very picturesque!the other barrows that were excavated have largely disappeared.1J. R. Mortimer Forty Years Researches in British and Saxon Burial Mounds of East Yorkshire, 1905.2T. G. Manby, Stephen Moorhouse, Patrick Ottaway (editors), The Archaeology of Yorkshire, YAS Oc casional Paper No. 3, 2003WW II MessengerI n the last Bulletin in an article about the WW IIstand-by to cycle to the Vicarage and be available for Invasion Scheme, we mentioned that Lawrenceduties in the event of an airraid. This had to be done West, Gordon Foster and Arthur West had beenwith no lights on his bicycle if this happened during a earmarked to act as Messengers for the Invasionblack-out, of course. Apart from this Lawrence would Committee. We talked about this with Lawrencenot have been aware of the Invasion Committee or who was 12 at the start of the war and remembershis likely role in the event of a German invasion, all of enrolling as a Civil Defence Messenger. He was put onwhich was secret at the time.322 BULLETIN 17'