Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Grinsell, Leslie Valentine

14 February 1907 – 28 February 1995

Leslie Grinsell was born in Hornsey, London and raised largely in Brighton, developing an early interest in archaeology through visits to Brighton Museum.  Although he was initially attracted by stone tools, he came to focus his attention on barrows, realising that these were among the least well understood prehistoric monuments in the British landscape and one of the few categories that could be studied in depth by an enthusiastic amateur.

His county surveys of southern barrows, including Hampshire, took place in the 1930s, while he was employed as a clerk by Barclays Bank. It wasn’t until 1949, after serving in World War II with the RAF in Egypt, that he was invited by Christopher Hawkes to join the team compiling the VCH for Wiltshire, thus becoming a professional archaeologist.  Three years later he was appointed as Keeper of Anthropology & Archaeology at Bristol City Museum, a position he was to hold for 20 years.

Over the course of his lifetime, Grinsell surveyed and catalogued around 10,000 barrows and advanced the archaeological understanding of such monuments.  His use of non-excavation techniques influenced British archaeology in the latter part of the 20th century and his willingness to pay attention to other sources of information, such as folklore and placenames was ahead of its time.

He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and in 1972 was awarded the OBE for services to archaeology..

Sources

Portrait

Contribution to county’s history

Field survey of the county’s ancient burial monuments, including use of placename and folklore evidence. The work was published in the Field Club Proceedings.  

Relevant published works

• Grinsell, L V (1936) The Ancient Burial Mounds of England

• Grinsell, L V (1938) Hampshire Barrows Proc Hants Field Club & Archaeol Soc 14, 9-40

• Grinsell, L V (1938) Hampshire Barrows II Proc Hants Field Club & Archaeol Soc 14, 195-229.

• Grinsell, L V (1940) Hampshire Barrows III Proc Hants Field Club & Archaeol Soc 14, 346-365


• Grinsell, L V (1941) The Bronze Age Round Barrows of Wessex 


• Grinsell, L V (1958) The Archaeology of Wessex

Critical Comments

Other Comments

Contributor

Dave Allen, October 2021

Key Words

barrows,

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