Investigations

Photograph taken by Henry Taunt, showing visitors to the long barrow in about 1900.© NMR, English Heritage The name of Wayland's Smithy has been linked to the long barrow since at least AD 955, when it was referred to as 'Weland’s Smithy' in a Saxon charter. It appears to be a name handed down from a time when metalworking was remembered as a potent, even magical practice.

Associated with the name is a local tradition. It is said that if you were to leave your horse tethered at the long barrow, together with a small coin, then Wayland the invisible elvin smith would magically re-shoe your horse while you were away.

Early antiquarian investigators believed that the monument was a small cave, and it was not until the early 19th century that it was recognised as a barrow. Wayland's Smithy was amongst the first monuments to be protected by scheduling in 1882. The site was still suffering from damage, however, and this led to local pressure to excavate the site in order to present it to the public in a more orderly manner.

These excavations, carried out in July 1919 and June 1920, were haphazardly organised and poorly recorded, even by the standards of the time. They consisted of cleaning the chambers by spade, but they served to confirm that the stone burial chamber was transepted, to show that it had held burials and to indicate the likely existence of an earlier structural phase.

Modern excavations of the site were undertaken in 1962-3. These revealed that the trapezoidal long mound concealed an earlier oval barrow and mortuary area. After these excavations were complete, the site was reconstructed to what is thought to be its original form.