Scutchamer Knob

Scutchamer Knob, also known as Cuckhamsley Hill and occassionally as Scotsman's Knob or Beacon Hill, is an early Iron Age round barrow on the Ridgeway at East Hendred in the English county of Oxfordshire (formerly in Berkshire).

Originally called Cwichelmeshlaew or Cwichelm's Barrow, it is recorded as having been the place where King Edwin of Northumbria killed Cwichelm of Wessex in AD 636 and, in the Middle Ages, became the meeting point of the Shire Moot (or market) which was abolished in 1620. It was long thought to be the actual burial place of Cwichelm but the mound has been excavated several times without serious finds. In 1006, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that the Danes marched to Cuckhamsley Hill as they believed that if they reached the Hill, they would never return to the sea.

References

* Adkins, R and Petchey, M. (1984). "Secklow hundred mound and other meeting place mounds in England" in the "Archaeological Journal" 141: 243-251
* East Hendred Parish Council. [http://www.hendredmuseum.co.uk/pages/millennium/history.htm East Hendred Millennium Record]
* Ford, David Nash (2001). [http://www.berkshirehistory.com/villages/easthendred.html Royal Berkshire History: East Hendred]
* Hewett, William. "The History and Antiquities of the Hundred of Compton, Berkshire"
* Williams, Howard. "Death and Memory in Early Medieval Britain". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press