Page 18 • The HERALD • 9th March 2023 v SAY YOU SAW IT IN THE HERALD v A story for ages 6 and up. Six-year-old Billy spends his summer holiday with his grandfather George. Along with Gerry, Cedric, Myrtle and Hawaiian Annie who are the 4 garden gnomes who come to life, there are 2 cats, Lenny and Benny and 1 pesky mouse. £9.99. To purchase a copy please contact Dell on: dell.05@hotmail.co.uk Free local delivery. Billy and the Garden Gnomes WESTWOOD BUILDING BUILDING & LANDSCAPING WE ARE A FAMILY RUN BUSINESS WITH OVER 40 YEARS EXPERIENCE BASED IN THE NEW FOREST. WE OFFER FREE QUOTATIONS AND ADVICE WHAT WE DO: • PATIOS • DRIVEWAYS AND BLOCK PAVING • GROUND WORKS • BRICK WORK • EXTENTIONS • GARAGE CONVERSIONS • CHIMNEY REPAIRS • ALTERATIONS • WE OFFER A FULL PLANNING AND DESIGN SERVICE TO SUIT YOUR PERSONAL REQUIREMENTS • FREE ESTIMATES • GUARANTEED WORKMANSHIP Call: 07725 002162 Email: westwoodbuilding@outlook.com • Foxhills, Ashurst, SO40 7ED PVCu FASCIAS & GUTTERING CLEANING SERVICE Gutters checked for leaks and repaired Also new installations Driveway, Patio and Decking Cleaning and Restoration Service Very reliable and fully insured Good Rates and Professional Service Special Rates for OAP’s Call us now for a free quote Holbury 07884 112416 The Legend of the Malevolent New Forest Pixies and their Connection to WW2 by Marc Heighway, mheighway@hotmail.com For hundreds of years, New Forest folk believed (and some still do) in errant pixies that roamed the heathland. ese mischievous beings are said to have been malevolent, rather than benign, and would be blamed for luring livestock into the boggiest parts of the forest, where the poor animals would succumb to a cold and watery death. e pixies of New Forest folklore are known as “Colt” or “Cold” Pixies. According to local mythology, Colt pixies take the form of a scru y, pale horse that would lead travellers and other livestock astray. A common local phrase still being used up until the early 1900’s was “to be as ragged as a colt pixie”. ere’s a special place in the New Forest which tips a hat to the New Forest pixies, and it just so happens to also have a connection to the Second World War and one of my favourite places: Beaulieu Air eld. I am referring to Cold Pixies Cave, also known as Colt Pixies Cave (depending on who ask). It is a Bronze race of beings. And of course, they would have to be small beings, so perhaps the mounds were guarded by pixies who would re arrows at anyone who attempted to steal the hidden treasure. It’s just a theory, and one I like. But, unlike other Bronze Age barrows in the New Forest, Cold Pixies Cave is not particularly uniform and round with the classic bowl mound; instead it’s a large area of irregular mounds of earth with gorse on top. e reason why it’s not like a typical barrow is because it was excavated in wartime, which destroyed the original shape. e reason it was excavated in 1941 is entirely down to the construction of RAF Beaulieu which was due to the start the following year. As you can imagine, having large mounds on an air eld is not conducive to a happy landing so they had to be attened. e Air Ministry gave archaeologists enough warning to let them excavate the barrows before they were dug out and levelled by mechanical diggers. e archaeologist in charge of the excavations of barrows on Beaulieu Air eld was Cecily Margaret Guido aka Peggy Piggott. You might have heard of her, she was a character in e Dig, the recent Net ix movie. In November 1941, she wrote to a colleague, and the letter included this statement: “This is to tell you the latest news of the excavations. You may be pleased to hear that we found an amber necklace of Wessex Culture type in the barrow called Coldpixies Cavern near the road, nothing else of particular importance.” She had found a Bronze Age necklace in the barrow. Of all the barrows excavated as part of the project, I believe this was the only artefact ever to be found. As it happens, Cold Pixies Cave needn’t have been excavated and “destroyed”, because it didn’t end up being in the way of the air eld construction. If you are familiar with Hawkhill Inclosure, it’s on the opposite side of the road. Despite the name, there is no cave there. As for Pixies, I will leave that up to your own imagination. Age bowl barrow, i.e., a burial ground dating from between 2,400 to 1,500 BC. Barrows like this are characterised by a bowl-shaped appearance, creating a circular hump or mound on the landscape, surrounded by a shallow ditch. ey were typically used for the burial of individuals with high social status. We don’t know why this barrow at Beaulieu Air eld was called Cold Pixies Cave, but there is a theory which goes something like this… e New Forest is home to a couple of hundred of these burial mounds. Many are hidden under bracken and were forgotten over time. But as time passed, the original purpose of the mounds was lost, and perhaps they became a mystery to the local people. Artifacts would be found in these mounds, including jewellery or arrowheads. is might have led New Forest people to believe that the mounds were once inhabited by a di erent Marc hosts monthly local history talks, visit nfhwa. org/events for details Pixie hiding in a cave in the dark White and pale horse in the mist in a forest
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