Dr. Whitaker does not appear to have noticed all the tumuli in the neighbourhood. In his "History of Whalley" he says--"Of this great battle there are no remains, unless _a large tumulus_ near Hacking Hall, and in the immediate vicinity of Langho, be supposed to cover the remains of Alric, or some other chieftain among the slain." The site of the tumulus, on the left bank, or south-east side of the Ribble, is marked on the Ordnance map. It is scarcely three quarters of a mile from Hacking Hall, and rather more than a mile from Langho chapel. No other tumulus is noticed by the Ordnance surveyors on the south-east side of the river.
Canon Raines states that the "large mound" removed by Thomas Hubbertsty, in 1836, was situated "about five hundred yards from the bank of the Ribble," and that the tumulus that had been previously opened was only two hundred yards distant from that stream. The "large mound" of Canon Raines, removed in 1836, in which remains were found, seems to have been a smaller affair than the other tumuli. This is affirmed by Mr. Abram, in a very able paper on the history of the township of Billington, in the Lancashire and Cheshire Historical Society's Transactions, otherwise he says, "the farmer would hardly have undertaken to level it." The tumuli on the right bank or north-west side of the river are named "lowes" on the six-inch Ordnance map, and "mounds" on the smaller one. The former name is evidently the Anglo-Saxon _hloew_, a conical hill or a sepulchral mound, or tumulus, in the latter sense a synonym of _beorh_ or _bearw_, a barrow. Although these large tumuli are on the north-west side of the river, the nearest is scarcely half a mile distant from the site of the removed one near Bullasey-ford on the south-east.
There is some confusion in the various descriptions of these mounds. Mr. Abram says, referring to the large tumulus called the "Lowe" on the north-west side of the Ribble--"Into this mound Whitaker had some excavation made about the year 1815, but he found the work heavy and gave it up without reaching the centre of the tumulus, where the relics of sepulture might be expected to be found." As Dr. Whitaker expressly says, he saw no remains of the battle except "a large tumulus near Hacking Hall," he must not only have been ignorant of the character of its immediate neighbour, as well as of the one on the Langho side of the river, near Bullasey-ford, if this "lowe" was the mound he but partially disturbed. This can scarcely be the tumulus referred to by Canon Raines if the distance (two hundred yards) from the river be correct. Neither can the five hundred yards distance of Mr. Hubbertsty's mound be reconciled with the site of the tumulus at Brockhall, near Bullasey-ford. Perhaps his figures have been accidently transposed. I had previously laboured under an impression that Hubbertsty had merely completely cleared away the mound but imperfectly excavated by Dr. Whitaker.