Deadmen's Graves
The grave mound Deadmen's Graves lying northwest of the hamlet Claxby St Andrew , near the Roman old route Bluestone Heath Road, Skegness Road today or (A1028) in Lincolnshire in England .
The remains of two protected non-megalithic monuments are 53 and 51 meters above sea level, respectively. The complexes called Deadmen's Graves I and II are located just below the south ridge of a hill, above a steeply sloping valley that leads in a southeastern direction.
Deadmen's Graves I.
Deadmen's Grave I hill is better preserved than Deadmen's Grave II and is near a dirt road that runs from Ulceby to Claxby Road. The trapezoidal hill has a preserved height of nearly 2.0 meters at its eastern end at about 14.0 meters in length, but decreases in height and width until it reaches ground level about 55.0 meters west. Like most long mounds in Lincolnshire, the mound of earth and rubble follows the contours of the mound but has suffered from excavations that have covered the side ditches. Deadmen's Graves I was examined in 1932 by Charles William Phillips (1901–1985) who noticed a pronounced "saddle" about 20.0 meters from the east end. It could be that the saddle seen in other Lincolnshire long beds such as Beacon Hill and Hoe Hill was caused by the collapse of a wooden chamber, possibly as a result of the structure's deliberate burning, which symbolically "closed" the facility (as inWillerby Wold in North Yorkshire).
Deadmen's Graves II
Also examined by Phillips was Deadmen's Graves II, approximately 180 m to the southeast. The similarly oriented system measures around 18 meters on its wider part in the east and is around 53.0 meters long. However, the hill was damaged in some places and in the center it was almost divided into two parts by a limestone quarry that has now been abandoned. Even so, it survived for most of its length with a height of about half a meter and reaches about 2.0 meters at the eastern end. The ground has slipped again over the years, which together with the limestone quarry has distorted its original shape and filled the flanking trenches.
Dilwyn Jones' investigation in 1998 found that there was another burial mound near Deadmen's Graves II, which was oval in shape, measuring approximately 36.0 by 18.0 meters. It is believed that this, like the two long hills, dates from the Neolithic Age . Evidence of continued land use in this area during later prehistory can be seen north of Claxby in the form of Mill Hill's partially damaged Round Barrow .
The burial mounds form a counterpart to the poorly preserved Giant's Hills about 1.6 km southwest.
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