Hetty Pegler’s Tump

Uley Long Barrow is a partially reconstructed Neolithic burial mound, situated high on the Cotswold escarpment. Locally, it is known as Hetty Pegler's Tump, after Hester Pegler who owned the land in the 17th century. It is at least 5000 years old.

Hetty Peglers Tump

by Robin Treefellow Collins

Protected by the stones,

those ancient bones,

holding silence,

of absorbing embrace,

it immerses us,

sitting on the cold gravel floor,

talking in the earthy chambers,

that love the living and the dead.

We are watching the low threshold,

where we crawled as children,

womb-returning,

the thinning light outside,

is brightening within,

in those stones,

those ancient bones,

the light lives,

and the Earths silence is a song.

We talk listening to our words echo,

into forgoten ancestral tongues,

we are joined by them,

in the wisdom,

Earth she is the encompassing light,

and her silence is a song,

is a song.

Photographs - view of Tump entrance by Bob Fry. Inside the Tump by Charlotte Rooney.