Mr S. O. Addy, in his valuable work _The Evolution of the English House_, speaks of the presence of “Tout” or “Touting Hills” near parish churches, but, from his descriptions, it would seem that most of his examples are genuine castle-mounds[203]. In two features, however, the mound which is a toot-hill, and nothing more, occasionally differs from the other hillocks which we are
FIG. 19. The Toot Hill, Little Coates, Lincolnshire. View from the North-Eastern boundary. The basal portion of the hill is entirely natural, and is now being excavated for sand. The upper portion, surmounted by the tree, has been modified artificially. ]
describing. One characteristic is the great size, as compared with barrows and mottes, and the other is the irregularity of shape, where the mound has been untouched by man. The writer’s notebook contains an account of a visit to the Toot Hill at Little Coates, near Grimsby, in December, 1903. The church of Little Coates, which is probably of early foundation, though only the featureless chancel arch of the present building dates before the Perpendicular Period, is about one-third of a mile distant. This Toot Hill (Fig. 19) is a huge mound with an irregular ground plan, but the upper portion has an elliptical contour. It is composed chiefly of sand and sandy clays, which seem to belong to the late Glacial Period. A sand pit which was being worked at the base of one side of the hill, yielded broken and comminuted specimens of _Ostrea_, _Tellina_, and other marine shells. Towards the summit, however, there were undoubted signs of man’s work. A slight fall of snow had rendered discernible a shallow trench which encompassed the hill slope. One could also pick out, near the base, the radial ridges and furrows of some old-time plough, but even these had not quite obliterated the trench. A few small flint flakes were detected on a patch bare of turf. One suspects that this hill served both as a beacon and a watch-tower when the Humber and the North Sea were nearer the spot, and when Grimsby was represented by a string of islets lying amid the waters of a lagoon. This condition of the landscape is known to have prevailed during the early historic period. The capping of the mound covers, mayhap, the dust of more than one celebrity. Bones and earthenware were found at, or near, this spot a century ago, and soon after the visit just described skeletons were dug up in the sand pit. The ultimate fate of these skeletons, and their determinations, could not be ascertained. Perchance this toot-hill will remind the visitor of the cremation of Beowulf, and the mound which “the Weders people wrought on the hill,” after the funeral-pyre which they had kindled had ceased to glow. We learn that the lamenting warriors raised