Wayland Smithy
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This is the image which Brian Bates used to illustrate " The Real Middle Earth " - his wonderfully evocative and whimsical research into the culture of our dark ages
ancestors who inspired Tolkein's " Lord of the Rings " and " The Hobbit ".
Wayland's Smithy is a Neolithic long barrow (approx 195ft x 50ft) surrounded by a grove of beech trees beside the ancient Ridgeway near the B4000 at Ashbury on the
Berkshire Downs. It is thought to have been constructed around 3500BC over a smaller mound.
Four great sarsen stones guard the entrance to the passage and chambers with dry stone walling topped by a capstone.
Wayland was a smith of scandinavian mythology who had supernatural powers. It is said that he would re-shoe a horse that had lost a shoe if it was left overnight at his
barrow, with a coin left at the stones for payment.
Legend claims that the White Horse of Uffington comes to be reshod by Wayland in his smithy once every hundred years. The surrounding
chalk downland of southern England offers ideal conditions for the creation of such hill figures
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