Combe, Berkshire

Coordinates: 51°20′44″N 1°28′10″W / 51.3455°N 1.4694°W / 51.3455; -1.4694

Combe
Intersection at Combe
Combe  Combe shown within Berkshire
Population	38 (2001)
OS grid reference	SU370608
Parish	Combe
Unitary authority	West Berkshire
Ceremonial county	Berkshire
Region	South East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	HUNGERFORD
Postcode district	RG17
Dialling code	01488
Police	Thames Valley
Fire	Royal Berkshire
Ambulance	South Central
EU Parliament	South East England
UK Parliament	Newbury
List of places: UK • England • Berkshire

Combe is a village and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire. It is situated in the district of West Berkshire, on the top of the downs near Walbury Hill and Combe Gibbet, overlooking the village of Inkpen and the valley of the River Kennet. Before 1895, Combe was in Hampshire.^[1]

Bronze Age people used communal 'long barrows' to bury their dead and one still exists directly beneath the Gibbet at Combe. Both male and female bodies of the dead may have been left in the open to be reduced to skeletons by carrion before being collected and buried. In many cases the corpses were carefully assembled with the head to the south, men facing east, women facing west. It is unknown whether this was the case in the so-called 'Inkpen' long barrow (named after the village to the north), though it is on an east-west alignment.

References

1. ^ Vision of Britain - Coombe, Hampshire (historic map). Retrieved on 2008-08-17.

External links

Media related to Combe, Berkshire at Wikimedia Commons