One hundred years ago, the man responsible for the most remarkable archaeological discovery of the 20th century was buried in a solitary grave on top of Beacon Hill, Burghclere.  David Allen takes up the story.

 

ONE of my regular walks around Winchester is along Magdalen Hill Down, next to the Alresford Road, where a bird and butterfly conservation area protects a few hectares of natural downland.  The ridge top path provides good views to the southwest, where the motorway traffic flows and slows around St Catherine’s Hill and, to the north, where the vast spread of the county is demarcated by a distant skyline drawn by the North Hampshire Downs.  Standing slightly aloof, looking like a huge burial mound or barrow, or even a denuded pyramid, is Beacon Hill.  I’m not sure if that thought occurred to me before I knew it was the resting-place of the man responsible for the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, or whether it came later.  In any event, this week marks the centenary of the 5th Earl of Carnarvon’s interment in his lofty grave and provides a timely opportunity to briefly explore his archaeological life.

Beacon Hill is crowned by a classic Iron Age hillfort, just like St Catherine’s Hill, although in following the contours, the builders produced an hour-glass shaped monument rather than a circular defence.  The fort, probably occupied between the 5th and 1st centuries BC, is not the oldest indication of early habitation in the area, however.  Just to the south lie ‘The Seven Barrows’ (actually a group of about twelve) the burial mounds of a dynastic group of Bronze Age people of at least a thousand years earlier.  The barrows were not well treated by the turnpike (now the A34) or the erstwhile Didcot, Newbury & Southampton Railway, but they did see some of the first ‘rescue archaeology’ in the county.  As the railway navvies bore down on the site in 1881 the 4th Earl, much to the excitement of his children, gave permission to Walter Money FSA of Newbury, to investigate two of the mounds.  His finds were hardly spectacular, but the ashes and bones ‘laid with great care in a little oval mound’ are typical of the period.  He also found struck flints and a bronze pin.

Hampshire Chronicle: Beacon Hill An aerial view of Beacon Hill from the south, showing the Iron Age fort. Lord

 

The 4th Earl’s interest in archaeology was manifest in his becoming President of the Society of Antiquaries and the British Archaeological Association, as well as patron of the Newbury and District Field Club.  This gave his son and successor every opportunity to become interested in the subject, but first he had to work his way through reluctant schooldays at Eton, many sailing trips, shooting parties, an advantageous marriage (it came with a dowry of, at today’s reckoning, £62 million) golf and horseracing.  It was his love of the new-fangled motor car, however, that was nearly his undoing.  ‘Motor Car-narvon’, as he was known to his friends, suffered a life-threatening crash at Bad Schwalbach in Germany in 1909, something that made his already weak constitution even more frail.

 

By this time, the 5th Earl was becoming involved in Egyptian archaeological exploration and had teamed up with Howard Carter.  Lord Carnarvon’s winters were spent in Egypt, where the climate was beneficial for his health, and summers in England, socialising and visiting racecourses.  With his now well-established reputation as an archaeologist and collector of antiquities, house parties at Highclere Castle included many of the leading experts of the day, including Sir Arthur Evans, and Leonard Woolley.  Carnarvon took the opportunity, in this illustrious company, to investigate some of the features within the Iron Age fort, but the results were ‘most disappointing’.  The large circles (hut terraces) and small hollows (pit depressions) they dug into produced only ‘black Bronze Age pottery’ and animal bones, and a brick hearth and clay tobacco pipes were merely evidence of the manning of the eponymous beacon.

 

Hampshire Chronicle: Seven Barrows Two of the Seven Barrows with Beacon hill in the background. This is where the Earl

The next few years were dominated by the First World War, but when hostilities ceased Carter and Carnarvon were back in Egypt where the Earl had obtained the concession to dig in the Valley of the Kings.  Their initial efforts went unrewarded and Carnarvon decided that 1922 would be the final year in which he could provide any funding.  On November 4, however, he received a telegram from Carter, urging him to hurry to Egypt, where they had unearthed ‘a magnificent tomb with seals intact’.  The opening of the tomb of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun, arguably the most important archaeological discovery of the 20th century, has been well-documented and celebrated around the world.  Equally well-documented is the fact that it was not long before Lord Carnarvon fell ill, dying on April 5 1923, at the age of 56. 

 

At the time, some lurid newspaper speculation focused on the ‘Curse of Tutankhamun’, suggesting that toxic fungi in the tomb had caused or contributed to his lordship’s death.  The truth was that he had cut a mosquito bite while shaving, leading to blood poisoning and, ultimately, pneumonia - this in a man who had long been prone to lung infections, exacerbated by his motoring accident 14 years before and his heavy smoking.

 

In a codicil to his will, added just days before his death, the Earl stated that he wanted to be ‘buried on Beacon Hill, in a mound of earth with trees and stones…not to cost more than £50.’  Apart from that, he requested a simple funeral.  He got his wish, but instead of a marker mound, the gravediggers created a flat terrace at the western end of the hill and sank a deep shaft.  There are differing accounts of the funeral, some describe it as taking place on Saturday April 28, with the ground having been hallowed by the Rector of Burghclere the previous day. The Hampshire Chronicle, however, states that it was on Monday April 30, with the Bishop of Winchester having performed the consecration rite and, as the interment took place, a ‘well attended’ memorial service was held at St Margaret’s, Westminster.

I have often pondered on why George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, chose such a solitary burial place.  Was it to emulate an Egyptian pharaoh, while being secure in the knowledge that his remains would probably never be disturbed?  Or was it to be among the archaeological monuments of his family estate, where he had wandered as a child and young man?  The reason may never be known.  What we do know, however, is that the Earl is not entirely alone.  On the day he breathed his last in Cairo, his dog, Susie, who was at Highclere Castle, let out a howl and died, and she too is buried in the Beacon Hill grave.    

Lord Carnarvon is the most aristocratic of the Hampshire Historians ‘celebrated’ by the Hampshire Field Club & Archaeological Society in their ongoing project.

For more information about this and more general Hampshire history visit https://www.hantsfieldclub.org.uk