Barnack is a village and civil parish in the Peterborough unitary authority of the ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire, England and the historic county of Northamptonshire. Barnack is in the north-west of the unitary authority, south-east of Stamford, Lincolnshire. The parish includes the hamlet of Pilsgate about northwest of Barnack. Both Barnack and Pilsgate are on the B1443 road. The 2011 Census recorded a parish population of 931.
Barnack is historically part of the Soke of Peterborough, which was associated with Northamptonshire but had its own County Council from 1888 until 1965. From 1894 until 1965 there was a Barnack Rural District that was a subdivision of the Soke, and which formed part of Huntingdon and Peterborough until 1974.
Barnack is notable for its former limestone industry, its Anglo-Saxon parish church and an unusual early Bronze Age burial. Hills and Holes, an area of Roman and later quarrying, is now a nature reserve.
The Barnack burial
The Barnack burial is an important early Bronze Age find. It comes from a complicated monument which was expanded and altered on at least three occasions. The original burial was very rich for the period, but was covered by only a small barrow. Later additional burials and cremations were cut into the barrow, and it was enlarged twice. Probably at the same time, three concentric ditches were dug around the barrow. The final monument contained at least 23 bodies and had a diameter of .
When gravel quarrying threatened the barrow in 1974, the decision was taken to excavate. The objects recovered were donated to the British Museum but replicas are displayed in Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery.
The primary burial
The primary burial was of a man aged between 35 and 45. He died sometime between 2330 and 2130 BC. He was very robustly built and quite tall for the time: about . He was suffering from slight arthritis. Marks on his bones, and those of the other people in the barrow, show that they were used to squatting. It is unknown if this was due to their work or just how they sat. His teeth had no disease but were well worn, showing he ate mainly a gritty diet of cereals.
The grave goods
The grave goods of the primary burial are rare and prestigious. There is a large "beaker" pot and a copper dagger, common items found in graves of the time. There is also a piece of oak charcoal; it is unknown what this was for and archaeologists have been unable to provide an adequate explanation why it was buried in the grave. There is an unusual pendant made of either bone from a sperm whale or walrus ivory. Yet the most luxurious item is a stone wrist-guard. These stone wrist-guards normally have between two and six holes carefully drilled into them. However, the wrist-guard from Barnack has eighteen holes, and each one was filled with a foil-thin disc of gold. The wrist-guard. made of greenstone, was never intended to be worn since the gold caps in the holes would have stopped it from being tied to the arm. Fewer than a hundred such wrist-guards have been found in Great Britain and the example from Barnack is arguably the finest. A similar less refined wrist-guard from Driffield in Yorkshire is also in the British Museum.
Parish church
The Church of England parish church of St John the Baptist is notable for its 11th-century Anglo-Saxon tower. The interior of the church includes a high-quality late Saxon Romanesque sculpture of Christ in Majesty. The tower is topped by what may be one of the earliest spires in England, dating to around the 12th Century.
Economic and social history
Barnack stone
Oolitic Lincolnshire limestone, including some called "Barnack rag", was a valuable building stone first used by the Romans. Quarrying continued in the Middle Ages when the abbeys at Peterborough, Crowland, Ramsey, Sawtry and Bury St Edmunds all used Barnack stone, and the monasteries frequently were in dispute over the rights to it. Blocks of stone were transported on sleds to the river Welland and loaded onto barges on which they were taken down the River Nene and the Fenland waterways. Most notably, Barnack stone was used to build Peterborough and Ely Cathedrals. Barnack stone was also used extensively for buildings in Stamford.
It is likely that the stone was also carved in the village. A possible Barnack school of Anglo-Saxon sculpture has been identified.
The stone was used for numerous buildings in Barnack itself, most notably the parish church. Another notable example is 7 Station Road, which is a 13th or 14th century house remodelled in the 16th or early 17th century. It is a Grade II* listed building.